Kevin McKinnon
Grand Forks Border Bruins
The Border Bruins played three games last week while battling the Beaver Valley Nitehawks and Nelson Leafs for top spot in the Neil Murdoch Division heading into the playoffs.
With the race for number one so close that predictions were being rewritten after every game, the Bruins had the chance to clinch the division on Tuesday night in Beaver Valley, regardless of the outcomes of the remaining weekend games.
The Nitehawks, coming into Tuesday’s game desperate for the win that could help move them into first place, controlled the first period. They outshot the Bruins 16-10 and Joel Smyth scored twice.
Spencer Horning got a quick goal at the start of the second period to bring the Bruins back within one, but Nathan Dominici recovered the lead for the Hawks two minutes later. Cody Quinney scored his third of the season, but Beaver Valley scored in the last minute of the period to ensure the Nitehawks still had a two goal lead heading into the second intermission.
Gavin Tritt made the most of a Bruins power play when he found himself as part of a two-on-one back in the Bruins end and scored a short-handed goal to give the Hawks a three goal lead. Jackson Smith and Chad Bates broke through the Nitehawks line late in the third, passing the puck to an open Karsten Gorrill for the Bruins’ third of the night, but that’s where the game ended, with a final score of 5-3 for the Nitehawks and the Bruins first-place hopes pushed through to the final two games on the weekend.
On Friday night, the Bruins travelled to Nelson for the last regular season game there. The Bruins outshot the Leafs in the first and third periods, but those were the periods where Nelson scored. In the first, Bennett Anklewich put the Leafs on the board first at 10:55. There was no scoring in the second. Lucas Byrne got an early goal in the third while on a power play, then, just after a second power play ended, Crae Dawson added another marker for the Leafs. They rounded it out with just over two minutes remaining in the period with a fourth goal by Leighton Partington. The Leafs scored three goals on five shots in the third, with the game ending 4-0 for the second straight time against the Bruins.
The Nitehawks won in Castlegar on Friday as well, so both teams added two points and found themselves in a three-way tie with the Border Bruins at 51 points. Saturday’s games would prove necessary to determine the seeding of the playoff season.
The Castlegar Rebels were the visitors for the Bruins final home game of the season. Eliminated from the playoffs by the league’s “wildcard” playoff format for the Kootenay Conference, the Rebels were playing for pride and brought a bus-load of fans with them for the night.
Jonah Smith, the Bruins goal leader, put the Bears on the board first early in the first period, giving the Bruins a 1-0 advantage at the first intermission.
Daytn Kulynych tied the game six minutes into the second period, but the Bruins rebounded with a pair of goals 21 seconds apart late in the period from Matteus Reis and Spencer Horning.
While Jace Kramer picked up another goal for the Rebels early in the third period, both Matteus Reis and Jonah Smith added second goals for the night, Smith’s short-handed, giving the Bruins not only a 5-2 victory but ensuring Grand Forks the top spot in the division.
Nelson defeated Beaver Valley, with Grand Forks having one more win than the Leafs in the first-level tie breaker. To give an idea of how close the race was, these were the other scenarios that were mapped out for Saturday night: A Beaver Valley win would have resulted in two teams with the same number of points and the same number of wins. The second level tie-breaker would have gone to the Bruins because Beaver Valley had one more win resulting from a shootout. (A Bruins shoot-out win against Castlegar on Saturday would have seen BV in first as a result of the third-level tie breaker, the head-to-head record).
As it played out, the Border Bruins are in top spot, followed by the Leafs and Nitehawks, with the Creston Valley Thundercats in fourth in the wildcard spot. Grand Forks had the opportunity to select playing either the third or fourth place teams due to a quirk in the seeding rules, and have elected to face Creston in the first round.
The best-of-seven playoff series starts with a pair of home games this weekend against the Thunder Cats, Friday the 17th and Saturday the 18th, with both games starting at 7:00pm at the Jack Goddard Memorial Arena. The series then moves to Creston for games 3 and 4 next Tuesday the 21st and Wednesday the 22nd. Game 5, if necessary, will return to the Jack at 7:00pm on Friday the 24th.
The 2022-2023 season has been a solid one for the Border Bruins, who hovered at or near the top of the league through October. Despite a few losses in late January and early February, those early wins provided enough buffer in the standings for the Bruins first place finish for the first time since the 1992-1993 season. The two other first place division finishes in the team’s history were 1973-1974 and 1979-1980. The only divisional pennant was from the ’73-’74 season, when the Bruins went to the KIJHL final, losing to the Cranbrook Colts.
With 25 wins, this year’s squad has the third-most wins through the regular season in the team’s history, and the effort put in by Coach Dave Hnatiuk and the entire Bruins roster cannot be overstated. Congratulations to all! Show your support at the Jack next weekend to cheer the team on through the playoffs.
Bruins video highlights can be seen on https://www.youtube.com/@bruinsbroadcast.