The Victoria Cougars and Campbell River Storm both have a home-Island edge at the 2019 Fred Cyclone Taylor Cup provincial Junior B hockey championship tournament, in terms of travel, but it’s the Storm that has true home-ice advantage.
The Storm are hosting the tournament at Rod Brind’Amour Arena, named after the Stanley Cup-champion captain out of Campbell River.
Not that the Cougars don’t also know the place well after beating the Storm 4-1 in the best-of-seven Vancouver Island Junior Hockey League final series for the Brent Patterson Trophy. The Storm were guaranteed the host berth in the Cyclone Taylor Cup, named after a pioneering B.C. hockey superstar.
The Cougars open this afternoon against the Revelstoke Grizzlies, champions of the Kootenay International Junior Hockey League. The Storm open tonight against the North Vancouver Wolf Pack, champions of the Pacific Junior Hockey League.
The third-seed KIJHL Grizzlies upset the top-seed Kelowna Chiefs and second-seed Kimberley Dynamiters to reach the provincial final. The Wolf Pack won both the PJHL regular season and playoff championships, sweeping the Langley Trappers in four games in the league final.
It has been a season of dramatic swings for the Cougars, who started out 3-3 before placing second in the VIJHL regular season (28-12-8) and dispatching the seventh-seed Oceanside Generals (18-25-5) in five games in the first round of the league playoffs. The Cougars outlasted the tough third-seed Nanaimo Buccaneers (26-18-4) in a six-game semifinal series before beating Campbell River in the final.
“The 12-game winning streak soon after the 3-3 start — when people were calling us just an average team — really set the tone for us this season,” said Cougars head coach Suneil Karod.
“Then winning our league final against Campbell River made us realize we are a good team and deserve to be here and can play at this level.”
The Storm (34-10-4) won the Andy Hebenton Trophy as regular-season champions, but were hard-pressed to get past the upset-minded eighth-seed Peninsula Panthers in a seven-game first-round series. The Storm survived and then swept their 2018 VIJHL finals opponent, fifth-seed Saanich Braves (21-17-10), in four games in the semifinals before bowing to the Cougars in the league final.
The Grizzlies and Wolf Pack meet Friday afternoon ahead of the Island derby that evening between the Cougars and Storm. The round-robin concludes with the Cougars playing North Vancouver on Saturday afternoon and the Storm taking on Revelstoke that evening.
The bronze-medal game goes Sunday at 10 a.m. and the championship final at 3 p.m.
“Every team here has strengths,” said Cougars bench-boss Karod.
“The Storm are highly skilled and everybody still has to worry about them. North Van is a very fast team. Revelstoke is very balanced and had a hard path to get here and will be a tough first opponent for us.”
The Cougars will use the up-tempo approach which got them to the provincials.
“We will play to our strengths and use our skill and speed up front to get tons of shots on goal and take way the goalies’ eyes,” said Karod.
“We will stay as offensive as much as we can, which was our strength all season.”
The Storm, which won the Cyclone Taylor Cup in 2015, lost in the bronze-medal game last year after making the final in 2017 and losing the championship game to the Beaver Valley Nitehawks. The Cougars were last in the Cyclone Taylor Cup in 2016.
Island teams to win the Cyclone Taylor Cup have been the Comox Totems in 1967, Victoria Cubs in 1971, Saanich Braves in 1976, Cougars in 2007, Peninsula Panthers in 2011 and Storm in 2015.
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