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UPDATED: Grand Forks Border Bruins earn point, lose heartbreaker

The Grand Forks Border Bruins came oh-so-close a win against the Kelowna Chiefs on Friday night, earning a point in a 7-6 OT loss.
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Forward Mitch Nishimura (right) and the Grand Forks Border Bruins lost a heartbreaker to the Kelowna Chiefs on Friday night. The team lost 7-6 in overtime but salvaged a point.

The Grand Forks Border Bruins came oh-so-close to a win against the Kelowna Chiefs on Friday night, earning a point in a 7-6 OT loss.

As has been the case a majority of the season, the team allowed a lot of shots on net in its own end (49 fired at goalie Dylan Quinn) but it also fired 35 at the Kelowna netminders.

The Chiefs’ Phil Bamber opened the scoring in the first period but the Border Bruins answered right back with a power play goal a little over a minute later – Grand Forks’ team captain Chris Critchley converted with the help of defenceman Robert Dawson and forward Mitch Nishimura.

Kelowna scored early in the second but Grand Forks scored four-straight goals (from Joseph O’Hara, Nishimura, Brendan Lee and Seth Cory while the Chiefs would score another two goals before the period ended.

Border Bruins’ forward Dustin Diemert scored early in the third and while the home team had a two-goal lead with about five minutes left, a pair of screened shots from the Chiefs, knotted up the affair.

Diemert took a hooking penalty late in the third, meaning the Border Bruins would be short-handed in the dying minute and into overtime and while Grand Forks killed off the Kelowna power play, opposing forward T.J. Dumonceaux scored at the 3:18 mark of the extra frame, much to the chagrin of the team and fans.

“Obviously it’s a tough loss,” Border Bruins’ interim head coach Matt Zamec said after the game.

“In a way, a loss like this is harder to take than a blowout loss.”

Zamec said that he got mad at his players during a timeout in the Spokane Braves game the night previous (after the Braves were up 5-0) and the team played well afterwards, as the team outscored Spokane 2-1 to close a game that ended up 6-2.

That seemed to carry over into the Kelowna game.

“Tonight we came out with that same attitude. I think we had it all game long. We were just battling and competing. It was positive on the bench,” explained Zamec.

“We were supporting each other; we didn’t come into the game with the attitude that we were going to lose, like we have in some games in the past, like we did last night. Tonight we showed up.”

The players were certainly disappointed with the loss, especially after how hard they played, but they noticed that there were improvements.

“It’s tough to take a loss like that when we had the lead but we played great,” said Nishimura, who had a goal and an assist on the night.

“We went from a 6-2 loss to hanging in there ‘til the very end.”

“I think everyone was all in sync tonight,” explained Captain Critchley.

“We worked hard from the start – previous games we wouldn’t have a good start – it was a full, 60-minute effort. We were doing good things on the power play and it was translating into good opportunities.”

The team went 1-5 on the power play.

Especially disappointed was Quinn, as evidenced as he stormed off the ice after the game; still he took everything in stride after.

“It’s kind of upsetting going from a win to a loss but we’re improving. We went from a 6-2 loss to a tie game going into overtime” Quinn said.

“We’ll get better for our next game and hopefully get a W there.”

Grand Forks’ next game is home tilt vs. the Nelson Leafs this Thursday (Feb. 2) at 7:30 p.m.



Karl Yu

About the Author: Karl Yu

After interning at Vancouver Metro free daily newspaper, I joined Black Press in 2010.
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