Sparrow’s taken flight in BCHL playoffs
Regular season scoring wasn’t Vipers’ forward’s forte; but this is the post-season ...
By Steve Ewen, The Province April 10, 2014
Colton Sparrow finished seventh on his team in scoring in the regular season.
Heading into the BCHL final, he’s third in the entire league in points.
If you’re searching for a guy who symbolizes what’s going on with the Vernon Vipers this spring, Sparrow is a start.
The Vipers, who are taking on the Coquitlam Express in the Junior A league’s best-of-seven championship starting Friday, have prided themselves on being a playoff-type team all year long. Big, strong, physical, grinding down their opponents at every turn.
Sparrow is one of those guys. Coach Jason Williamson put him together with fellow 20-year-old forwards Brett Mulcahy and Brendan Persley with the idea that they would be Vernon’s shutdown line.
Sure enough, teams are now trying to find checkers to match up against them. Sparrow has seven goals and 18 points in 15 playoffs matchups, after putting up 11 goals and 34 points in 50 regular season games.
Vernon (30-18-4-6) finished third in the Interior Division during the regular season, and needed overtime in Game 7 in the division finals to get by the first-place Penticton Vees (36-16-2-4).
Vernon and Coquitlam (27-26-2-3) outlasted the Victoria Grizzlies (37-15-3-3) in the three-team round-robin semifinals.
“Colton has been a heart and soul guy all year, playing the way we want to play,” said Williamson. “You just know when certain guys are playoff performers and he’s that type of guy. He knows what it takes to win, and he knows, as a 20-year-old, it’s his last kick at the can.”
He knows Vernon, too.
It’s his hometown and he grew up a fan of the Vipers. He remembers as a five-year-old going to watch a 1998-99 Viper team playing home games at old, tiny Civic Arena. That club, featuring the likes of Lanny Gare and Todd Knight, went on to win the Royal Bank Cup national championship that May in Yorkton, Sask.
Kal Tire Place, the current home of the Vipers, opened in 2001.
“I remember one time getting to go in their dressing room, and thinking how loud it was with the stereo blaring,” Sparrow said.
He has parlayed this playoff run into an NCAA scholarship as well. The 5-foot-11, 180-pound Sparrow, who’s in his fourth year with the Vipers, recently committed to play next season with the University of Alaska Fairbanks Nanooks. Williamson said that he had interest for several schools during the BCHL playoffs.
“As soon as his game took off to another level, I knew it was going to get busy for him,” Williamson said.
Things will stay busy for Sparrow and the Vipers regardless of how this Coquitlam series plays out, since they are the host team for the now-monickered RBC Cup national championship. It runs May 10-18 at Kal Tire.
Williamson is stressing to them that qualifying by traditional channels is more appealing. Sparrow was a rookie on the 2011 Viper team that lost in the RBC finale in Camrose, Alta.
“Winning a national title is a special, special thing, but going about it the right way, and winning your way all the way there, will make it that much more memorable when you look back at it,” he said.
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