Vernon Vipers seeking road-warrior moxy
Published: February 15, 2012
If the Vernon Vipers are serious about becoming B.C. Hockey League playoff contenders, they first need to become road warriors.
While their home record is a respectable 18-6-1-1, they were a woeful 7-15-0-1 away from Wesbild Centre as they headed into Tuesday night’s tilt with the Merritt Centennials at Nicola Valley Arena. With six of their remaining 10 regular-season games on the road, the Snakes simply need to find a way to extract points from opponents’ rinks, said Vipers’ assistant coach Chris Shaw.
“We’ve been good at home, but have struggled on the road and we can’t put a finger on what the difference is,” said Shaw. “We’ve had a lot of good efforts on the road; we just got the short end of the stick.”
That was the case Saturday night as the Vipers fell 3-1 to the host Chilliwack Chiefs, the team they are chasing for the final Interior Conference playoff spot. Heading into Merritt, the Vipers were in fifth place at 25-21-1-2, two points back of the Chiefs (26-20-1-2).
Vernon entertains Mike Vandekamp’s 22-18-0-9 Nanaimo Clippers Thursday night at Wesbild.
“Just from knowing coach Vandekamp, they’ll be a hard-working team. They’re probably one of the more physical teams in the league and they still have a shot at making the playoffs, so they’ll be playing desperate hockey too,” said Shaw.
In Chilliwack, the Chiefs opened the scoring in the first period when Viper defenceman Brett Corkey was unable to hold the puck at blueline, allowing Malcolm Gould to chase it down and rip a shot past Kirby Halcrow from the top of the circle at 3:37.
David Bondra, the son of former NHL sniper Peter Bondra, made it 2-0 just over five minutes into the second frame when he buried the rebound off Gould’s shot during an odd-man rush.
Jedd Soleway, pouncing on the rebound from Marc Hetnik’s point shot, supplied Vernon’s lone goal 11:14 into the second frame, but Spencer Graboski answered for the Chiefs less than two minutes later to complete the scoring.
“Chilliwack beared down on their chances. We made three mistakes and they scored on every one of them,” said Shaw. “It was just miscues in front of the net and not tying up sticks in front of the net.”
The Vipers will be in tough Friday night when they visit the juggernaut Penticton Vees (44-3-0-2), winners of 32 straight games, at the South Okanagan Events Centre. They will make it three games in as many nights when they host the Westside Warriors (18-26-2-5) Saturday.
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