Vernon & Grande Prairie Meet In Doyle Cup:

This is on the Grande Prairie web site:

Vernon Will Be Storm Foe In Doyle Cup

Mon, Apr 13 2009

Grande Prairie Storm coach Mike Vandekamp will be returning to some familiar territory when the Grande Prairie Storm open up their Doyle Cup best-of-seven playoff on Friday.The Storm will be taking on the Vernon Vipers, a team Vandekamp coached, in the Vernon Civic Centre, a building Vandekamp is used to as both coach of the Vipers and the Merritt Centennials of the British Columbia Junior Hockey League.Vernon wrapped up the BCHL championship at home on Sunday night with a 2-1 win over the Powell River Kings and won the best-of-seven Fred Page Cup championship 4-2 in games.Games are tentatively slated to go in Vernon on Friday and Saturday, April 17 and 18. Should the first two games be split, the series will remain in Vernon for Game 3 and then resume in Grande Prairie for all remaining games. If one team wins both of the first two games, the series will return to Grande Prairie for Games 3 and 4 and any more games needed to finish the series.The Vipers normally play in the Wesbild Centre, a newer facility that holds over 3,000 people. That building, much to the chagrin of the Vipers, is booked for a forestry show next weekend so the team has to relocate to the much older Civic Centre, which holds about 2,200.The switch of venues, which takes away some of the home ice advantage for the Vipers, is not sitting well in the B.C. community.“That’s one of the problems you face when you play out of a multi-use facility,” said Storm business manager Don Moon. “It’s a matter of working with the city and the facility and being creative. We have had to maneuver around some events too, but our league, the facility and the team have managed to work things out for the most part and we have had very little disruption for our fans and team over the years.”Because of a curling event this week and a basketball game on April 20, the Canada Games Arena isn’t available for hockey until Tuesday, April 21 so the Doyle Cup schedule had to be adjusted somewhat to accommodate the lack of hockey ice in the Canada Games Arena.Should the first two games in Vernon be won by one team, the first game in Grande Prairie will tentatively be Tuesday, April 21. A split in B.C. means the first game in the Canada Games Arena will tentatively be on Wednesday, April 22. An official schedule will be released Monday.“There has to be some give and take,” said Moon. “Had the Vipers wrapped up the BCHL earlier we would have been willing to start the Doyle Cup earlier to accommodate them so they could have had their home building. Unfortunately the BCHL series went six games so starting it early had to be ruled out.”Vandekamp isn’t the only Storm member familiar with Vernon. Defencemen Bobby Tyson and Matt Williams played in the BCHL as did forwards Brooks Robinson, Jordon Harrison and Elias Grossmann.The Storm and the Vipers have never played against each other. The BCHL teams the Storm have played in their history are the Nanaimo Clippers, who they lost to 4-1 in the Doyle Cup in 2004; the Burnaby Express who they defeated twice in exhibition games in Dawson Creek last August; and the Prince George Spruce Kings and Quesnel Millionaires, who they have met several times in exhibition play over the years.Winner of the Doyle Cup advances to the Royal Bank Cup Canadian Junior A championship in Victoria, B.C. in early May.Tickets for the first two games of the Grande Prairie portion of the Doyle Cup are on sale now at the Crystal Centre Box Office. You can visit the Box Office on 99 Ave. and 100 St.; order by phone at 780-538-0387; or click on the TICKETS button at the top of the page and order online.