By Adam Donnelly

Kamloops Storm in tough against Revelstoke as KIJHL Playoffs begin

Feb 26, 2019 | 4:24 PM

KAMLOOPS — One point. A single point was the difference between the Kamloops Storm facing a team they had a record of 3-2-1 against and a team that they haven’t beat all season. The Storm tied the 100 Mile House Wranglers 3-3 Saturday night to close out the KIJHL Regular Season. The tie gave them 41 points, just one back of the Sicamous Eagles for 3rd place in Doug Birks Division – and earned the Storm a date with the Revelstoke Grizzlies in round one of the playoffs.

After starting the KIJHL season winless in their first seven games, making the playoffs was never a sure thing for the Storm. Heading into game one of their Doug Birks Division Semi-Final series tonight in Revelstoke against the top-seeded Grizzlies, Head Coach Jassi Sangha knows his team is in tough.

“If we made it out of the first round, we’d have to deal with Revelstoke anyways,” Sangha told CFJC Today. “I feel like it was inevitable, and we just move on and go day by day.”

Sangha knows his team enters this best-of-seven series as the heavy underdogs. In 49 regular season games, the Grizzlies won 42, including all six against the Storm, while outscoring the Kamloops club 30-7 in those six match-ups.

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“They have four solid lines, and they have six solid D, and their goaltending’s good too,” Sangha said. “The good thing for us is we don’t have to key on anyone, we’re just taking it line-by-line, and the approach is similar for our guys too.”

The Grizzlies finished the year with a quartet of players with 50 or more points, and 11 who scored over 30, while the Storm had two players tally 30 or more points – Theran Kinross (47) and Chris Thon (3)5 – meaning Storm goaltender Ethan Paulin-Hatch might be the most essential player for Kamloops in this series, as he’ll likely be under fire from the opening face-off. On paper, the odds stack up in favour of Revelstoke, but on the ice, the Storm know that anything can happen in a best-of-seven playoff series.

“Our main goal for tonight is to go in there and show we can compete with them,” Sangha said. “That would be a great thing for our team… to say we can compete with them. Then what’s the next step? We take a period, then maybe win two periods, then win a game. We’ve got to find that level where our boys are comfortable competing with the group because we can.”

Games one and two go tonight and Wednesday in Revelstoke, before Games 3 and 4 in Kamloops at Memorial Arena Friday and Saturday nights.