River Kings claim CIHL championship; will meet Stamps again in Coy Cup

The Terrace River Kings have the CIHL bragging rights for the 2017-18 season, dispatching the Williams Lake Stampeders in two straight games to claim the CIHL Championship for this year, with both teams now set to take to the ice again in one month as the Stampeders play host to this years Coy Cup.

The path to the CIHL championship for the River Kings required a comeback on Saturday, with the Stamps jumping out to an early 2-0 lead and holding that margin into the first intermission, giving some life to the possibility of a third and deciding game for Sunday.

However, Terrace made their adjustments and came out fast in the second, with Luke Gordon taking care of the offensive push in the first minute of play to reduce the margin to one, Gordon was in on the second River King goal four minutes later as Ryan Roseboom pulled the two teams equal.

The Stamps would find their range again in the midway point of period two, taking a one goal lead into the third period.

Terrace River Kings are the 2017-18
CIHL Champs, they now look to
take the Coy Cup Provincial crown
next month in Williams Lake 

The hometown fans would get to cheer the River Kings on to a victory through the final frame, with Ben Reinbolt tying things up again within the first forty seconds, with Gordon again in on the scoring.

The two teams then battled it out through the next nineteen minutes, with the Stamps serving a too many men on the ice penatly in the final two minutes, Terrace thrilled the Sportsplex crowd with a winning marker with just 41 seconds on the clock.

And once again it  was Luke Gordon who continued his dominance of the Stamps, claiming the winning goal for River Kings, converting a scoring play from Ben Reinbolt and Austin Turner.

The win securing the two game to none victory in the best of three series.

The game featured some high tempo hockey with a total of 124 shots fired between the two teams over the course of the night, the two teams keeping to the hockey for the most part with little in the way of penalties called after a physical first period.

A look at the Saturday summary can be found here.

The Coy Cup is on the
line in March with this
year's tournament in
Williams Lake

The two teams will now rest up, regroup and draw up some new battle plans for the provincial Senior Men's AA championship which takes place in the Cariboo city in March 27th to 31st.

The full line up of the remaining competitors for this years championship has yet to be determined.

The Williams Lake organizing committee has been working out their hosting duties over the last few months, with the pace now picking up as the Tournament nears, you can keep up to date on the Coy Cup prep work from the Stampeders Facebook page.

We'll update our notes on the tournament as more details are released and we get closer to the March 27th puck drop.

For more items of note from the 2018 CIHL season see our archive page here.



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