The Princeton Posse treated its fans to a showstopper of a final season home game, Friday, Feb. 16, winning over the North Okanagan Knights 5-0.
It leaves one game tonight, Saturday Feb. 17, left before playoffs, against Summerland Steam.
At stake across the Kootenay International Junior Hockey League (KIJHL) is the Presidents Trophy, awarded to the first place team in the regular season.
The Posse won that honour last year, and are hungry for a repeat.
For it to happen however, the Posse must beat Summerland, while arch rivals Revelstoke must lose to Sicamous on the same night.
Both teams have 69 points, but statistically the Grizzlies have a slight edge which would give them the trophy should both teams win.
Winning the regular season comes with a home ice advantage throughout the playoffs, which coach Mark Readman told the Spotlight is “huge,” given the team’s loud and proud fan base.
Friday night Princeton opened the scoring with two goals in the first two minutes, courtesy of Josh Roy and Justice Loewen, with assists credited to Brennan Watterson, Matthew Langdon, Bryton Morrow and Vinay Junek.
The next 45 minutes were scoreless, and then Morrow netted an insurance goal on the power play, at 7:15 in the third period, assisted by Watterson and Tyson Horiachka.
Nathan Scott and Kyle Schetchel put a comeback out of reach for the Knights, and they were assisted by Watterson, Junek, Roy and Ty Russell.
Recently acquired Posse net minder Joey Hawco earned his fourth shut out, and fifth win, out of seven games.
The Posse outshot North Okanagan 46-22.
The Knights exercised muscle in the third period, racking up 20 minutes worth of penalties including a bench minor, two separate whistles for roughing, and one for tripping. Cole Dermott was ejected late in the frame with a 10-minute misconduct and a two-minute unsportsmanlike conduct.
North Okanagan, which is second place to Princeton in the Bill Ohlhausen division and will face either Kelowna or Osoyoos in the first round of playoffs, hits the ice for the its final time in the regular season Saturday, Feb. 17 at the Nor-Val Centre.
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