The Revelstoke Bantam Grizzlies are off to the provincial championships after sweeping Kamloops in the Okanagan-Mainline Amateur Hockey Association Tier 4 league finals on Saturday.
They didn't make it easy, that's for sure.
Revelstoke won game one 3-0 in Kamloops last weekend. On Saturday, Kamloops was in Revelstoke, with the home team looking to secure their spot at the provincial championships.
Things looked good for the first half, with Revelstoke dominating play and racking up a 9-2 lead by the middle of the second period.
That's when things got interesting.
Kamloops scored twice before the period was over to make it 9-4. They got two more goals in the first three minutes of the third. All of a sudden it was 9-6, with a lot of hockey left to play and Kamloops enjoying the advantage of a deeper bench; they had 10 extra skaters to Revelstoke's seven.
It got worse, when a Revelstoke player was assessed major penalty. They killed it off, but that wasn't the end of their penalty trouble.
Kamloops made it 9–7 late in the third, then 9–8 with about a minute to go. At this point, a clearly exhausted Revelstoke team was hanging on. There was a noticeable tension in the arena as Kamloops pulled their goalie for one final push. They pressured, but the puck stayed out and a joyful Revelstoke squad leapt in celebration.
They will now be heading to the provincials in Fraser Lake, B.C., from March 15–20.
They are the second Revelstoke team to qualify for provincials after the peewee team did so last week.
Revelstoke's atom team play in their league finals tonight in Sicamous, where they take on Lumby. Last week, the boys tied Salmon Arm in Sicamous 4-4 and beat Vernon 12-1. They then faced Vernon again in the semi-finals, where the score was 6-3. That set the stage for tonight's game against Lumby.