For Prince George Spruce Kings head coach Brad Tesink, weekend sweeps on home ice have been as rare as flying camels.
Not once since he joined the Spruce Kings’ staff for the start of the 2023-24 season had the team given him back-to-back wins to ease his coaching mind - until they did it Saturday night.
Their 7-4 win over the visiting Alberni Valley Bulldogs, coming less than 24 hours after the Spruce Kings bit the Bulldogs 4-3 in overtime Friday was sweet vindication for the long-suffering coach and his players, who worked like dogs all game to complete the sweep.
“It took a village to win those two games this weekend,” said Tesink. “Obviously for us, with the little bit of transition our roster’s been in as of late we’ve had guys come in and step into big roles and we’ve had guys that have elevated their game and we saw this weekend it didn’t matter who was on the receiving end of this good moments it was a full team effort.”
Tesink took over as head coach Nov. 25 after the Spruce Kings fired Alex Evin and he’s has plenty of adversity to deal with since then with a revolving door of starting goaltenders three key forward departures to the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League and a team struggling to find a winning formula.
But their two wins against Alberni Valley (19-12-2-0), the fourth-place team in the BCHL Coastal Conference, gives the Spruce Kings hope they’ve turned the corner. Tesink and his associate coach Taylor Harnett are starting to turn things around in a positive way and it’s certainly not too late for the Kings (12-17-3-1) to mount a playoff push and they want to keep it going.
“Obviously positives came out of this weekend, unfortunately it’s the all-star break,” said Tesink. “It’s probably the wrong time for the all-star break but for our team it’s finding a way to get ourselves healthy and adding pieces as we go.”
Brogan McNeil led the way for Prince George with his first career BCHL hat trick. Playing on a line with Brock Cummings (three assists) and newcomer Nick Metelkin (two assists), they had plenty of jam all game and were justly rewarded for it.
“We needed those points to get into a playoff spot, I think those two wins are going to give us a better chance and I just love the way we’re working right now,” said McNeil.
“We love Brad and since the coaching change we’ve just been building. He’s an awesome coach and it’s good for him, good for the team. I think there’s a lot more to see from us, guys are buzzing.”
The 18-year-old from North Delta got the ball caps were flying from the stands as Kings fans in the Indigenous Night crowd of 1,624 at Kopar Memorial Arena cheered his third goal of the night. Cummings led a 2-on-1 rush on the penalty kill and fed the puck to a wide-open McNeil and he buried it low to the far side behind goalie Colin Winn for his 11th goal of the season.
The Bulldogs got that one back just 25 seconds later while still on the power play. A shot from Zeke Nicholson bounced off the body of defenceman Kenyon McIssac while parked just off the post and the 18-year-old Prince George minor hockey product had his fourth goal of the season to make it a 5-3 game.
Tensions rose another notch for Kings fans when Bulldogs forward Jacob Terpstra lifted a wrister in over the shoulder of Kings goalie Dylan Johnson to cut the deficit to ne.
But Will Moore had an answer for that 51 seconds later with the insurance policy the Spruce Kings needed to seal the victory. He corralled a bouncy rebound after linemate Nicolas Papineau nailed the crossbar and scored to restore the two-goal lead. Papineau then capped the scoring into an empty net.
“It’s great to get the hattie but it’s whatever, I just put my body on the line, I just love the team and the group of guys we’ve got,” said McNeil who’s had three two-goal games this season prior to Saturday.
“That’s a good building block for our team, we’ve short a couple guys right and we just stuck together as a squad, everyone was rolling. We were talking on the bench (after the Bulldogs reduced the gap to 5-4), we gotta get back into it, we can’t let them claw back and we just kind of grinded it out and we buried one.”
Terpstra drew first blood for the Bulldogs, scoring his 12th of the season three minutes after the opening puck drop. Kings centre Brady Anes found the net in behind Winn at 14:57 and late in the period McNeil took a goalmouth pass from Cummings and let fly a quick snapper that gave the Kings lead they would never relinquish.
Metelkin, who signed with the Kings earlier in the week for the NAHL Odessa Jackalopes, scored his first BCHL goal Friday. In the rematch he set up McNeil’s second goal, 51 seconds into the second period, chipping the puck into the slot from the side of the net to McNeil and he snapped it in for his 10th of the season.
Then it was Kings defenceman Isaac Holt’s turn to join the red-light brigade when he scored his first career BCHL goal, 4:07 into the second. Holt, a hulking six-foot-five, 220-pound defenceman from Pembroke, Ont., led the rush into the Bulldogs’ zone and let rip a slapper from the right face-off dot that fooled Winn. Holt signed a college commitment to NCAA Division 1 Robert Morris University for next season and joined the Spruce Kings in a trade from the Vernon Vipers nine games into the season.
The Bulldogs outshot Prince George 30-29.
McIsaac and his 20-year-old brother Brady, who was selected this year as a BCHL all star, were born and raised in Prince George and this was their homecoming, playing in the same rink their father Brent played in when he was a Spruce Kings defenceman in 2000-2001, and the brothers were obviously hoping for a better outcome than just one out of a possible four points.
“It was just a tough weekend for us, we’ve been battling little adversity ourselves, we lost both last weekend at home and we came up here hoping for a good result, said Kenyon, who, like his brother, is a former Cariboo Cougar.
“We had a tough game yesterday, scratched through and got to overtime and today just wasn’t our result as well. It’s definitely cool coming back home here, all my family’s here and it was a good opportunity to be able to play in my hometown. It’s cool experience playing with Brady, we live together down in Port Alberni and he’s having a breakout season for himself, looking for a scholarship.”
LOOSE PUCKS: Forwards Owen Goodbrand (shoulder) and Linden Makow (upper body) remain on the longterm injury list. Goodbrand is back in PG receiving treatment for his wounded wing… Spruce Kings left winger Kazumo Sasaki scored a goal for Japan in a 4-3 shoutout loss to Korea at the eight-team IIHF World Junior Hockey Championship Saturday in Tallinn, Estonia. Japan faces Estonia on Sunday (6 a.m. PT)… Cummings and defenceman Evan Bellamy will represent the Spruce Kings next weekend at BCHL all-star festivities in Salmon Arm. Cummings and Bellamy will play in the Top Prospects Games on Friday and Cummings will draw double-duty having booked a spot in the 3-on-3 All Star Game on Saturday… The Spruce Kings return to Kopar on Wednesday, Jan. 22 to take on the Surrey Eagles.
