The Quesnel Thunder AAA peewee hockey team made it look easy last weekend winning their best-of-three series against the Williams Lake Timberwolves to earn a spot at the provincial peewee championships in Campbell River in March.
Despite missing a couple of players with injuries, the Thunder handled their Cariboo rivals quite easily with an 8-3 win Friday and a 6-3 win Saturday.
In Sunday’s game the Thunder had a 4-0 lead after the first period and stretched that to 5-0 after forty minutes of play.
However, as so often happens, even among professional teams, the Thunder went to sleep with the comfortable lead.
The Timberwolves took full advantage of the situation and closed the gap to 5-3 with just under three minutes to play.
The Thunder woke up and potted another goal to secure the 6-3 win.
Unlike the second game, the peewee Thunder got off to a slow start and the first period ended with each team having scored twice.
Although the teams entered the second period deadlocked at 2-2, Thunder netminder Josh Salmons was not concerned.
“The first period is the toughest,” he said.
“You have to try and get the momentum.
“I knew we would get back in it.”
Get back in it they did as the Quesnel Thunder took control of the game with a much more physical play that led to many scoring chances.
The Thunder took advantage of those chances and lit up the red lamp six times to take an 8-3 lead into the third period.
The key to the second period, team manager Gord Salmons said, was the players on his bench, “woke up and started playing our game.”
“We started playing a physical game,” he explained.
“We also had some good forechecking.”
Defensively, the Thunder also tightened up on the defensive side of the puck with some strong backchecking, limiting the Timberwolves to just a single goal in the second and a single goal in the third period.
The third period saw little in the way of offence from either team, although the Thunder did have their opportunities as they continued to apply pressure in the offensive zone.
Despite the muffled offence in the third period, Salmons said the coaches were still pleased with the play of the team.
“We were still playing hard and there were still lots of good hits,” Salmons said.
In addition to a strong backchecking effort, the Thunder also received a solid performance from netminder Josh Salmons.
“He made some good saves, but he didn’t have a lot of work,” father Gord said.
Several of those good saves came in the third period on the few occasions the T’Wolves managed to apply pressure.
“It’s hard when there isn’t much action,” Josh said.
“You just have to stay focused.”
Josh, who’s favourite NHL goalie is Pittsburgh Penguins netminder Marc Andre Fleury, was focused as he stuck out his pads to make some key saves to thwart any thought of a comeback by the Timberwolves and keep the wind blowing in the Thunder sails.
The Quesnel Thunder peewee team is now practicing for the provincial peewee AAA championships in Campbell River in March.