Snakes Trim Trail In OT:

This is in todays Morning Star Newspaper:

Snakes trim Trail in OT

Published: February 01, 2011

If you do David Robinson a favour, it doesn’t take long for him to pay it back.

At least that was the case Saturday night at Cominco Arena where the Vernon Vipers clipped the Trail Smoke Eaters 2-1 in a B.C. Hockey League double-overtime thriller before 1,000 fans.

Robinson got bailed out by Vernon netminder Kirby Halcrow when the Smokies were awarded a penalty shot in lieu of a minor he earned while the teams were at 3-on-3 in double OT. Halcrow hung with Smokies’ sniper Travis St. Denis to make the stop.

On the very next shift, the Viper captain went forehand-backhand to beat first star Trail netminder Kiefer Smiley shortside for the winner on a rush started by second star defenceman Malcolm Lyles. Dylan Walchuk sprung Robinson (third star) with a nice pass on an odd-man rush.

The Smoke Eaters (30-19-2-2) came out hard, outshooting Vernon 6-1 in the early going. Eric Walker opened the scoring for the hosts at 2:33, assisted by Dylan Tappe.

“We were slow coming out of the gate. They took it to us pretty good,” said Vipers’ head coach Mark Ferner. “But we weathered the storm.”

Darren Nowick completed the regulation scoring with three seconds left in the first frame. Walchuk corralled a partially blocked point shot and fed it to Dane Muench, who went cross-crease to Nowick for a tap-in on the powerplay.

This is the Vipers’ 18th foray in to overtime this season, and forward Kyle Murphy said it does take a toll.

“We’re certainly getting used to it, but it’s tough, especially in your second game of the weekend. We’re thrilled to get the win,” he said.

“There weren’t many penalties so it was just 5-on-5 hockey and both teams were rolling lines.”

The Vipers, first in the Interior at 30-10-4-8, lost forward John Knisley early on when he re-aggravated a hand injury, forcing Ferner to juggle his lines.

“It gave us the ability to mix some lines around. It kind of got everybody going,” said Ferner.

The Smokies, who finally have close to a full roster, went 7-3-1-1 in January. It is the first time since the 2003-04 season that they finished the month above .500.

“The trade deadline helped,” said Ingram, who landed forward Nic DeSousa from Prince George. “If you look at it, the last three weeks we’ve picked up DeSousa, (Sam) Mellor and St. Denis.”

St. Denis and Mellor, two key offensive components, missed the first part of January due to injury.

The Vipers play six of their eight remaining regular-season games at Wesbild Centre. They entertain the Nanaimo Clippers (24-22-1-5) tonight at Wesbild Centre.

In KIJHL action Saturday night, the Revelstoke Grizzlies got 2+1 from Brandon Perger as they grounded the North Okanagan Knights 4-0 at Nor-Val Sports Centre.