The Richmond Juvenile Blues can certainly relate to how the Richmond Bantam Ravens are feeling these days.
Both teams hosted their respective provincial championships and went unbeaten the entire tournament, only to lose the gold medal game to their opening day opponent.
For the Ravens, it was a stunning turnaround, having defeated the Tri-City Predators 9-1 four days earlier. The Blues had a much tougher task going up against the defending champion that had given them fits for much of the season.
Richmond opened the six-team event at Minoru Arena by doubling the North Vancouver Storm 4-2. It was the first win in four tries against their Pacific Coast Amateur rival. North Van produced 2-1 and 4-2 results in regular season play and the teams battled to a 1-1 tie in the Final Four playoffs.
The Blues still went on to be crowned PCAHA regular season and playoff champions. Trying to add a B.C. Hockey banner to complete the prestigious championship “hat trick” proved to be too tall of an order.
In front of a big crowd on Sunday night, the Storm Van set the tone by jumping out to a 2-0 lead and relied on sound defensive hockey the rest of the way for a 3-2 victory.
“They are an excellent team and played very well,” said Blues coach Harold Hait. “In the end, we had to beat them twice and go through the entire tournament without a loss. That is a lot to ask in that kind of format.”
The Storm entered the final day of the championships not even knowing if they would be playing for gold.
They trimmed Coquitlam 4-3 in what essentially was a semi-final game between the second and third place teams. Meanwhile, the Blues were cruising to an 8-2 victory over winless Port Coquitlam. They had earlier defeated Coquitlam (4-3), Langley (7-2) and Juan de Fuca (9-3) in their impressive run.
The Storm nursed their 2-1 lead into the third period when they capitalized on an odd man rush for what proved to be a huge insurance goal. The Blues scored in the final minute to make things interesting.
“North Van is a very physical and strong team who have some bigger boys,” added Hait. “They are tough to play against, especially when they have the lead. They were also coming off that big win over Coquitlam.
“It’s been a great season and we came up one game short.”
The Blues’ disciplined play throughout the championships was recognized with B.C. Hockey’s Fair Play Award, presented to the team with least amount of penalty minutes.
Richmond also scored a tournament high 35 goals, led by Arjun Sodhi and Ryan Hart with six each.
Sodhi also topped all scorers with 12 points in five games. Elvis Jansons was right behind him with 11, including five goals, while Hart finished with 10 points. Brandon Wheeler was also outstanding in net.
Sodhi, Jansons and Wheeler are among seven in the Blues line-up graduating from minor hockey. They are joined by team captain Kieran Docherty, Roman Pallone, Braden Lynd and Alex Whitwham.
The Richmond roster for the championships also featured: Edvins Jansons, Cole MacKenzie, Tyler Hait, Samuel Twaites, Connor Bruce, Jeremy White, Justin Getz, Solomon Ivanoff, Alex Bernardini, Brady Wang, Jovan Jankovic and Midget “A” affiliate Kyle Gounder.
Injured goaltender Jordan Allen was unavailable for action, while Juvenile C2 call-up Spencer Powell appeared in two games.
Hait was joined by the bench by Glenn Wheeler and juvenile grad Taylor McElwain.
Rob Twaites was the team safety person and Angela Zizic-Pallone was team manager.
