KAMLOOPS — Shattered glass in a hockey game is a rarity.
The odds of it happening twice in one game are about as long as holding the winning ticket in a record 50/50 draw.
The Blazers lost 4-1 to the Victoria Royals, who won the first round playoff series four games to two.
The Blazers came out with a big offensive push but had it stalled by a pane of shattered glass about five minutes into the first period.
Following a 20-minute delay for glass repairs, Victoria opened the scoring on a goal by Brandon Cutler.
The Royals added to their lead with three more goals in the second; Cutler scored his second of the game and Ralph Jarrett, both on the power play.
Jarrett’s goal came shortly after another pane of glass shattered, forcing another 20-minute delay.
Carson Miller then scored with eleven seconds left to give Victoria a 4-0 lead after two.
16-year old Dylan Garand was pulled after letting in four goals on 13 shots.
Dylan Ferguson, one of three overage graduating players, came in for the final 20 minutes of his junior career and stopped on 10 of 10 shots.
Orryn Centazzo had the lone Blazers goal, late in the third.
Coming from seven points out of the playoffs with six games left, winning a tiebreaker over Kelowna and then going to six games against Victoria, head coach Serge Lajoie says “it’s just been an amazing run the last 24 days — we’re very proud of the maturity they’ve shown, the resiliency, more the growth within the dressing room.”
Team captain Jermaine Loewen, who ended his five-year junior career — all with the Blazers — says he was “flooded with emotion. The whole third period was very emotional, and it was hard to hold it together, feeling that this time there wasn’t going to be a comeback.”
Jeff Faith, who came to the Blazers in a mid-season trade, is the other overage graduating player.
While the Blazers lost, one fan went home a big winner, collecting a 50/50 jackpot of $20.534, believed to be a record for a Blazers game at the Sandman Centre.
