After a tumultuous regular season that saw new ownership and a coaching change, the West Kelowna Warriors are now facing elimination from the first round of the BCHL playoffs.
Sunday’s matinee game at Royal LePage Place in West Kelowna was a Warriors massacre.
Penticton’s potent offence racked up nine goals, including five unanswered ones in the final frame, to wallop the Warriors 9-2.
“We’ve played with them for 40 minutes, for 30 minutes, 50 minutes and then they got a couple of guys that are pretty exceptional and they take advantage of a couple of mistakes,” Warriors head coach Simon Ferguson said.
One of the those “pretty exceptional guys” Ferguson is talking about is Penticton Vee Jay O’Brien, who has five goals and two assists so far in the series.
“He’s dangerous every time he is on the ice,” Ferguson said.
“When you have got a guy who is a 20-year-old, first round NHL draft pick, you have to eliminate any mistakes you make against him,” Ferguson said.
So the Warriors plan is to come out to play mistake-free hockey in game four Tuesday, while adhering to an old playoff cliché: “One game at a time one shift at a time,” Ferguson said.
“We’ll see if we can come out and win our first shift and then win the next one and see what happens.”
For their part, the Penticton Vees will reset and approach game four as if it was any other game.
Penticton head coach Fred Harbinson has been behind the bench for too long to take anything for granted.
“A win is a win, a loss is a loss, it doesn’t matter what the score is,” Harbinson told Global News on Monday.
“There are players on that team (Warriors) who don’t want to pack up and go home,” Harbinson said.
Game four of the series takes place on Tuesday at 7pm at Royal LePage Place in West Kelowna.