Heavyweight Bout

The Cougars and Storm met for the first and only time of the regular season on Sunday afternoon. This match-up was supposed to be the second meeting, but unfortunately the first game was postponed, and ultimately will be cancelled.

The top two teams in the VIJHL lived up to the hype. Evenly matched is virtually every metric this game was fast and hard hitting. James Quaife opened the scoring in the 1st with a bomb of a shot that went top shelf. The Cougars countered 10 minutes later when Pang was able to bury a pass from behind the net after the Storm keeper, Nick Peters, got caught behind the net on a turnover.

Shaw Cathcart grabbed his 1st junior goal of his career early in the middle period. After a turnover at the Cougars blue-line Alex Bend was able to feed Cathcart on the right wing and he found a hole in Fraser Wyatt to reclaim the lead. This would eventually be the game winner.

The 3rd was frantic and stressful for both Cougars and Storm fans. Both teams traded chances and the Cougars came close to tying the game a few times. With Wyatt on the bench and the Cougars on a power-play Nick Peters stood on his head and made several fantastic saves to stave off the Cougars attack.

The next time these two teams meet is either the Championship finals or next season. I think both teams are hoping for the former. If they do meet in the finals, it’ll be the 7th time they have faced off against each other in the finals. And no other team has won the playoffs since the Panthers in 2011.