Red-Hot Warriors Face Stiff Test In Vernon:

Red-hot Warriors face stiff test in Vernon on Friday night

Saturday, November 28, 2009 - Submitted by John Harding

Nov. 27, 2009

Stiff test for Warriors on Friday night in Vernon

Vernon, B.C. – A successful Junior A hockey season ends with a victory in your last playoff game and a skate around the ice with the RBC Cup.

The Vernon Vipers did just that in May. Thing is, that season hasn’t seemed to end.

The defending national champion Vipers have won 28 of their 29 games this season in the B.C. Hockey League. Their only loss came back on Oct. 3 on home ice against the Penticton Vees.

The Vipers can tie their franchise record of 22 straight victories – achieved by the 1998-99 team, which was coached by the brother of current Viper Sawyer Mick, Troy – with a win over the Westside Warriors at the Wesbild Centre on Friday night (7 p.m. start, listen to John Harding’s play-by-play at bchl.ca).

The Warriors would like nothing better than to put a halt to this streak, and they come to Vernon on a modest streak of their own with five wins and a tie in their last six games.

Vernon, ranked No. 1 in the country, has a 28-1-0-0 record and sits first, duh, in the Interior Conference. They are coming off a home win Thursday against the Prince George Spruce Kings. The Warriors have a 19-8-1-0 record, are third in the conference and are also coming off a home win Thursday, 5-4 over Salmon Arm.

Aside from the win-loss record, there are other statistics related to the Vipers that are equally shocking. The have scored two more shorthanded goals than they have power play goals against. They have out-shot their competition every game this season and have held opponents to 25 shots or less 18 times in 29 games this season.

The Warriors, after an up-and-down start to the season, have been playing well of late under first-year head coach Darren Yopyk. After battling flu, injuries and the absence of star forwards Cam Reid and Grayson Downing (at the World Junior A Challenge), the young Warriors are relatively healthy, Yopyk is rolling four lines and he’s also getting great leadership from his 20-year-olds.

Goaltender Kevin Jebson of Surrey has been superb of late. He has an 18-7-1 win-loss-tie record, a 2.85 goals against average and a .910 save percentage. Fellow 20-year-old Trevor Bailey of Winfield is the current BCHL player-of-the-week and is third in league scoring with 26 goals and 24 assists for 50 points. Brendan Ellis, a 20-year-old defenceman from Kelowna who is committed to NCAA Div. 1 Merrimack next season, leads all BCHL blueliners with 11 goals and 21 assists for 32 points.

Reid, an 18-year-old from the Lower Mainland who was chosen in the seventh round by the Nashville Predators in the NHL’s June draft, is eighth in league scoring with 41 points.

The Vipers are led on offence by Mike Collins, a 19-year-old from Boston who is fifth in league scoring with 47 points and headed home next season to play at Merrimack with Ellis. Braden Pimm, a 19-year-old from Fort St. John committed to Northeastern for next season, has 39 points.

They might not lead the team in scoring, but the Jones twins from Montrose, B.C. provide the engine that drives this Vipers ship. Kellen and Connor are 19 and are both headed to NCAA Div. 1 Quinnipiac next season. They starred for Team Canada West in the recent World Junior A Challenge and work as hard as any pair of forwards in the country. Kellen has 35 points this season and Connor, who led the Challenge tournament in scoring, has 34 points.

One can argue whether or not it’s a product of stingy team defence, but goaltender Graeme Gordon’s numbers are shocking. The 20-year-old from North Vancouver has a 21-1 win-loss record, a 1.63 goals against average and a sizzling .928 save percentage.

The Warriors do lead the Vipers in one statistical category, albeit only by a hair. The Warriors have the top power play in the league (they went three-for-six Thursday night against Salmon Arm) at 26.62 per cent, just ahead of second-ranked Vernon (26.24 per cent). Vernon leads the league in penalty killing (89.92 per cent) while the Warriors are sixth (83.54 per cent).

The Warriors return home for a game against the Williams Lake Timberwolves on Saturday at Royal LePage Place (7 p.m. start).