Three River Rush players are celebrating 100 games played in the KIJHL while the team's captain has his 150th junior hockey game coming up.
Cash Anderson, Mathias Reha and Richard Burden played their 100th games during the Rush's Jan. 17 to Jan. 19 weekend on the road. The team's captain, Bennett Kuhnlein will hit 150 overall junior hockey games in the team's match against the Williams Lake Mustangs Friday (Jan. 24).
Reha started the year with the Kelowna Chiefs as their captain and was traded to the Rush, he played with the Chiefs his entire KIJHL career until his move to Quesnel.
"I'm pretty excited to move on to new things," he said as it is his last year with junior hockey. "Try to go as far as we can with this team and try to make a big push for a first year team in this league."
He started playing hockey at a young age and followed in the footsteps of one of his role models, his dad, as a lifelong defence player.
"He watches back home in Kelowna so it's nice to have that and get a text message after the game, see how I did from him."
Burden started playing hockey young but quit for a few years.
"I like skating, but I didn't like going around chasing a puck," he said. He got back into hockey and is one of the team's rough players. "I never was until I started playing in the KI and then that was the only way that, as a rookie, I could get in the lineup every night. So I just would try and hit as many times as I could, just hit everyone that moved."
Burden would have reached the milestone sooner but he broke his foot in a game early in the season.
It's also Burden's final year in junior hockey and he said he likely won't be continuing with the sport into college.
"Thinking about going and playing golf in college, but probably I'll end up going to college and just doing golf on the side."
Kuhnlein has played games in the KIJHL, BCHL and in the Maratimes.
"It feels like yesterday I was just going into Revelstoke as a 16-year-old. It just feels like it's gone by so fast," he said. "I like the camaraderie with the guys, it's so fun coming around every day and having 22 of your best buddies here and we just hang out and joke all day and then you get to go out and compete with them. It's really fun, it's something I'm so lucky to do and have had the opportunity to do for so long."
Kuhnlein said he's made lifelong friends in hockey who he still talks to regularly, including Cash Anderson. Anderson and Kuhnlein have being playing hockey together since they were eight and they're happy to end off their junior hockey careers together.
"I'm just happy that in my last year I get to finish it out with Cash. Me and Cash have played together since we were eight years old," Kuhnlein said. "It would be awesome to be able to win a championship with him in our last year."
Anderson said they work extremely well together because of how long they've played together and known each other.
While Kuhnlein doesn't entirely know what his next steps are and is fully focused on pushing for the championship, Anderson is planning to play hockey at the college level after this season.
One of Anderson's most memorable goals in the KIJHL is when he scored a game-winning goal against Princeton in last year's playoffs. He said it was a huge win for the team.
"Started playing hockey when I was four in West Kelowna. As far as I can remember always just kind of been on the ice every year, all year round," Anderson said, adding one of his favourite things about the game is the culture. "Just getting to hang out with my best friends every day."
The River Rush have their next home game, and Kuhnlein's 150th junior hockey game, Friday (Jan. 24) at the West Fraser Centre. They'll be facing the Williams Lake Mustangs and then playing them again in Williams Lake the day after.
