Vipers Amped For Cup Showdown:

This is in todays Morning Star Newspaper:

Vipers amped for Cup showdown

One look at the B.C. Hockey League scoring leaders gives a pretty good indication what the Powell River Kings are all about.
The Kings have four snipers in the top-10 – Darcy Oakes, Kyle Bodie and Clay Harvey occupy the top-three, and Mat Bodie is at No. 8 – of both regular- and post-season scoring. Powell River also had a league best 4.2 goals-per-game.
The Vernon Vipers, who made the marathon two-ferry bus ride to Powell River for Games 1 and 2 of the Fred Page Cup Championship, going tonight and Saturday, roll into the best-of-seven series boasting the league’s best defence.
The Snakes allowed a stingy 2.4 goals against in the regular season, and, backed by the stellar play of netminder Andrew Hammond and a team-first approach to defence, have lowered that to an iron-clad 1.6 in the postseason.
“Do we think we can out-run-and-gun them?” pondered Vipers’ head coach Mark Ferner. “Maybe not, but we’re pretty good defensively. The powerplay and penalty kill are going to play a big part in this.”
The Vipers allowed just one goal on 26 penalty kills, while capitalizing six times on 36 powerplay attempts in the Interior Conference final against the Salmon Arm SilverBacks.
Ferner took a reconnaissance trip to watch Game 7 of the Coastal Conference final where the Kings grounded the Victoria Grizzlies 4-1 Tuesday night at Bear Mountain Arena.
“From what I saw in the final game, both teams didn’t want to go to the penalty box, but (the Kings) have some physical players.
“Until you get on the ice with them, you can only make so many assessments from the stands. We’ll let the players sort it out on the ice.”
Harvey (2), Bodie and Jordan Grant scored for Powell River in Game 7. Cody Bremner replied for the Grizzlies with four minutes remaining.
Kings’ goalie Carson Chubak, who joined the Bodie brothers, Oakes and Harvey in the all-star game in Vernon, made some monster saves as the Grizzlies pressed in the second period. Chubak, a Prince Albert product, stopped former Kelowna Rocket Myles MacRae on a breakaway and robbed Jonathan Milhouse by going cross crease.
The Vipers lost a trio of players to injury in their gruelling six-game war against the ‘Backs, and before Thursday’s skate, Ferner said rugged defenceman Cameron Brodie and forwards Mike Collins and Ryan Santana were questionable for Game 1.
The Vipers also had a bit of misfortune in finding accommodation in Powell River because of a jazz festival.
“It’s been planes, trains and automobiles to get here, and now we don’t have proper accommodation,” fretted Ferner, adding that a 2-3-2 format might have been more suitable for this series. “We’re all at one hotel (Thursday), and then we’ve got to split up tomorrow.”
Games 3 and 4 go Tuesday and Wednesday respectively in Vernon. If necessary, the series would return to the Sunshine Coast, Friday, April 10 for Game 5. And due to lengthy travel times, Game 6 would go Sunday, April 12 in Vernon, followed by Game 7, Tuesday, April 14 in Powell River.
Vernon (Lakers) last faced Powell River (Paper Kings) in a Fred Page Cup in 1991, when the Lakers went on to win a Centennial Cup title. This will be the Vipers’ first cup final since 2006-07, when they bowed to the Nanaimo Clippers in six games.
The Vipers faced the Kings just once in the regular season in Powell River, a 4-2 loss way back in September.
Kings’ head coach/GM Kent Lewis, who was also bench boss when Powell River bowed to Vernon in ‘91, said his speedy bunch didn’t celebrate like rock stars after surprising Victoria.
“They had a quick little cheer in the dressing room, and then it was like it was game 20 in the regular season, and they went off for something to eat,” said Lewis, 42. “They are dialed in right now. They like being David and playing Goliath if that’s what people want to think.
“Sure, we blew a 3-1 (series) lead, but this group has a lot of guts, and it showed going into Victoria, and winning a Game 7 in front of 3,000 fans.”
Vipers’ d-man Mike Leidl got to play the Kings three times with the Burnaby Express before he was dealt to Vernon at the trade deadline.
“We know that they’ve got some dangerous forwards up front, but if we can get pucks deep and get their d-men running and get a good forecheck on them, they won’t be able to stay with our forwards,” said the Fort St. James product. “Powell River all year hasn’t really played a physical game. It’s not really their style down on the Coast to play as physical as we do in the Interior, so hopefully we can wear them down through the series.”
Hammond doesn’t expect things to be much different than the Salmon Arm series.
“Salmon Arm was pretty offensive too, so I don’t know if it’ll be much different. In the next couple of days we’ll get a better read on them.
“Our physicality will be there, just like it was in the Salmon Arm games. I don’t know if they have any forwards like Salmon Arm’s (Matt) Wray and (Colin) Lidster who are going to constantly pound you, but they do have (Kyle) Leahy and few other guys who are pretty tough.
“We won’t be deterred by people trying to take the body on us or trying to hurt us. Salmon Arm was a lesson for all our guys to learn that if we just keep sticking to our game and only worry about the stuff you can control, a lot of times your game will prevail and you’ll come out on top.”
Lewis, in his second tour of duty with the Kings after brief coaching stints in Victoria and Nanaimo, said his club found a “good identity” by taking the Cliff McNabb Trophy as Coastal champions in dramatic fashion. He’s not overly worried about how the Vipers play the game.
“There should be no surprises at this time of year,” said Lewis, once a power forward who played two years with the Western League Victoria Cougars and one year with the BCHL Nanaimo Clippers. “I think you can sometimes worry too much about what the other team does instead of just focussing on what got you here and do what you do best.
“At this age, we’re a work in progress. We’re finding out good things about our club, and I think Mark would say the same thing.”