A season of near perfection has produced a provincial championship for the Seafair Islanders.
A memorable four days in Nanaimo concluded Thursday night with a 3-0 victory over Prince George in the gold medal game at B.C. Hockey ’s Bantam Tier One Championships. The win extended the Islanders’ unbeaten streak to 30 games that includes earlier Pacific Coast Amateur Flight One regular season and final four playoff titles.
They now will represent B.C. at the Western Canadian Bantam AAA Championships — March 29-April 1 in Kamloops. The tournament will also include Airdrie Xtreme (Alberta), West Central Wheat Kings (Saskatchewan), Winnipeg Hawks (Manitoba) and the host Thompson Blazers. Following round-robin play, the top two will meet in the final next Sunday afternoon.
The Islanders opened the eight-team event in Nanaimo with convincing wins over Yukon (13-2) and Victoria Racquet Club (6-0) to promptly secure a semi-final berth. First place in their pool group was then clinched with a 4-1 triumph on Wednesday afternoon over Prince George.
Austin Kofler, Davis Sato, Michael Abgrall and Thomas Tein took care of the scoring as the Islanders outshot their northern opponents 41-20. Ajeetpal Gundarah got the win in net.
Thursday morning’s semi-final against Central Zone (Kelowna) proved to be a thriller as Seafair prevailed 3-2 in overtime.
Sato ended the drama at the 1:56 mark when he buried a feed from Kofler and Ethan Riesterer, shortly after a Central Zone penalty had expired.
A pair of first period goals by the Okanagan squad, just 14 seconds apart, produced a 2-1 lead and set the tone for the tense affair. Agbrall put his team on even terms in the second period after Josh Wessels had opened the scoring.
Dylan Tsang was terrific in net, stopping 34 shots.
Prince George earned another shot at the Islanders by blanking Nanaimo 6-0 in the other final four tilt.
The gold medal game was more typical of what Seafair has been doing all season — dominating its opponent at both ends of the ice.
The locals outshot Prince George 42-15 — firing 34 over the opening 40 minutes alone. Jaden Uy scored what proved to be the game winner midway through the first. He added his second of the night in the middle stanza and Wessels rounded out the scoring in the third. Gundarah recorded the shutout.
The Islanders are the first-ever Seafair team to win a Bantam provincial title at the Tier One level and ironically it comes in the final season before the association merges with Richmond Minor.
For head coach Steve Robinson, the long post-season run comes as he is also guiding the Delta Ice Hawks in the Pacific Junior Hockey League championship series against the Ridge Meadows Flames. That best-of-seven affair is tied at 1-1 heading to Maple Ridge this weekend for games three and four. The winner will represent the PJHL in the Cyclone Taylor Cup provincial junior “B” championships which is being hosted by the Richmond Sockeyes — April 12-15.
The Islanders roster also features: Jacob Bonkowski, Dominic Passalacqua, Carson Bigras, Tate Taylor, Tyler Matsuo, Ethan Yodogawa, Joshua Mori, Nico Fromm-Delorme, Ryan Bal, Bailey Hung and Aidan Texeira.
