Skip to content

Wranglers take full points from tough arenas

The 100 Mile House Wranglers managed to take home all four points this week

The 100 Mile House Wranglers managed to take home all four points this week as they overcame the North Okanagan Knights 3-2 on Feb. 3 in Armstrong and the Revelstoke Grizzlies 6-2 on Feb. 4 in Revelstoke.

"I'm proud of the kids to go to two tough arenas and come out of there with four points, that was big," said head coach Dale Hladun.

Friday 3-2

"North Okanagan, they're a hard working team. They do have structure to their game and they're always tough to play against. I felt our skill level is higher, but their work ethic and structure is as strong as anybody in our league. So even though they don't have a lot of wins, they're a tough team to beat," Hladun said

Against the Knights, the Wranglers were first on the board with a goal late in the first period by Garret Hilton (Justin Bond) with 1:55 left on the clock.

In the second period, the Wranglers extended their lead with a goal by Nick McCabe (Hilton) with 11:24 left on the clock.

Next, The North Okanagan Knights bounced back, starting a small comeback, by bringing it to within one at 7:07 in the second period.

In the final stanza, the Knights tied up the score at 12:43 during a power play following boarding penalty against Hilton.

The 100 Mile lads, however, weren't going to leave it at that and Ryan Friesen brought home the points with an unassisted goal.

"We had a 2-0 lead they managed to chip away with some power plays and then Ryan Friesen, he's been playing so well since Christmas, that [he] just took charge of the game and scored the game-winning goal," Hladun said.

In total, Wranglers goalie Jakob Severson faced 23 shots saving 21. The Wranglers had two power-plays to the Knights' four.

Saturday 6-2

"In Revelstoke, there was a lot more passion in the game. They get a lot of fans there. They get a lot of people off the ski hill, they like their Grizzlies up there. In the game, I thought we were playing it very well. We were moving the puck really well and you could tell it was frustrating the Grizzlies which led to more of a physical game."

Just like against the Knights, the Wranglers were first on the board late in the first, with a goal from James Gordon (Ryan Friesen) with 3:18 left on the clock, who took advantage of the Wranglers' power-play.

When the clock started up again, the Wranglers quickly started to run away with the game when Rob Raju (Gordon) extended the Wranglers' lead to 2-0 at 19:19.

Gordon then came back for his own goal to extend the 100 Mile lead to 3-0 with help from Sam Bosek and Raju.

The team wasn't even close to done yet, as Jaydon Gilding furthered the difference at 4:57, with an assist from Kolby Page to 4-0.

The Revelstoke Grizzlies came out of a score hibernation (3:15) to make it 4-1 at the end of the second period with an unassisted goal by Revelstoke player Jon Vandermolen.

Vandermolen came back for another unassisted goal in the third to bring it back to 4-2, before the 100 Mile team put the final nails in the coffin.

Matthew Clarke (Gordon and Travis Gook) landed the team's second power-play goal at 6:04 before Nick McCabe (Hilton and Clarke) settled the score at 6-2 to bring home the points.

The Wranglers had a whopping 15 power-plays but gave away 13 themselves, a number they'll be looking to decrease significantly in the upcoming game against Chase. In all, 100 Mile goalie Jacob Severson stopped 31 out of 33 shots.

Five Games Left

With five games left to the Doug Birks Division trophy, the Wranglers trail the Chase Heat by six points. The Wranglers have two games left against Chase, with the next one on Feb. 10. In order to surpass Chase, the Wranglers will have to win both and cross their fingers, one of the other teams takes some points off Chase as well.

"They have a good powerplay. So there's two ways to deal with a good power-play. One is don't take penalties and then the second part is make sure you work on your penalty kill so we'll do both of that. ... Overall the boys have been playing really good since we came back from Christmas. I think just that weekend against Kamloops when the unfortunate situation came up with Brevin [Gervais] kinda rattled our team and those two games are our only two losses since we came back from Christmas," Hladun said.