Penticton, BC: The Penticton Vees (5-0-0-0) remained undefeated last Friday with a 2-1 win over the West Kelowna Warriors in their home opener. This weekend, they play the Vernon Vipers (7-1-0-1) in a home and home series, beginning Friday at the South Okanagan Events Centre at 7:00 p.m.
Last week, Adam Scheel made 21 saves and the Vees got goals from Dakota Boutin and Grant Cruikshank in the win. Cruikshank was making his season debut after missing all of training camp, pre season and the first four regular season games due to injury.
The Vipers are coming off a three-game road trip to Vancouver Island and the Mainland last weekend in which they won all three games. Friday the Vipers scored three times in the first and beat Victoria 5-3. Saturday, Vernon used four power-play goals en route to a 4-3 win over Nanaimo, and Sunday afternoon the Vipers came back from down 3-1 in the second to defeat Surrey 5-4.
Friday’s game is the first of six meetings between the Interior Division rivals, who matched up in the Interior Division Final last season. Penticton won in game seven at home. It also begins another chapter in the storied rivalry between these two teams. In last year’s playoff series, they combined for 147 penalty minutes, 16 misconducts and two fights in the seven games.
Most importantly however, four important points are on the line this weekend. Vernon currently sits atop the Division with 15 points in nine games played. Penticton is third with 10 points, though they have played just five games.
After a slow start to the season with just five games in the month of September, Friday’s game begins a stretch of 10 games in 23 days for the Vees, with games on Friday and Saturday of each weekend in October.
The broadcast for tonight’s game with Craig Beauchemin and Scott Austin can be heard live on EZ Rock AM 800, online by clicking on this sentence, or watched on www.hockeytv.com. The pre-game show begins at 6:40, with puck drop scheduled for 7:00.
Team Statistics
Leading Scorers
Penticton Vees
Owen Sillinger – 4 G 2 A 5 GP
Nicky Leivermann – 1 G 4 A 4 GP
Cassidy Bowes – 1 G 4 A 5 Gp
Vernon Vipers
Brett Stapley – 6 G 6 A 9 GP
Jimmy Lambert – 3 G 8 A 9 GP
Tanner Wishnowski – 2 G 6 A 9 GP
Special Teams
Power play
Penticton Vees – 19.4% (11th in BCHL)
Vernon Vipers – 27.3% (2nd in BCHL)
Penalty Kill
Penticton Vees – 88.5% (3rd in BCHL)
Vernon Vipers – 84.9% (5th in BCHL)
