Williams Lake Stampeders squeak to CIHL regular season first place, after surprise loss to 100 Mile House Bears

The CIHL regular season wound down this past weekend, with a surprise split result in Williams Lake in the last double-header games of the season. The Stamps won 10-3 Saturday and celebrated their victory afterwards and came back for Sunday’s game a little more vulnerable, allowing the Bears their first win of the season by a close score of 7-6. Playoff positions have been established. In the west division, the second-place Omineca Ice will play a best-of-three first round with the Stampeders and the east division winners, the Kitimat Ice Demons will travel to Houston Luckies Saturday for the opening of the other first round best-of-three-game series. Both series can be expected to be barn burners, with both Houston and Kitimat on longish winning streaks and Omenica wanting to keep its string of wins going. The Stamps will be anxious to prove the loss against the Bears Sunday was the result of too much celebrating the night before, when the Lightening Cup for regular season champions was presented. Houston Luckies with a 6-3 win over the Smithers Steelheads, combined with the Omenica Ice’s two wins over the Mackenzie Moose, including a 7-2 shellacking of an under-manned Moose team Saturday, saw the Ice go through and the Steelheads drop out of the playoffs…much to their own disappointment after a hard fought game. Demons traveled to Terrace and wound up their regular season against a River Kings team that seemed more intent on playing hockey than getting into a bump-and-grind with Kitimat. It was an entertaining match-up with a less-than-full house, but Terrace were out-played and outscored in the second and third periods and wound up losing 7-2. Burnie Carlson in the Kings’ net had an outstanding night, making 50 saves on 57 shots. However, Kitimat could look back on the point lost in game four of their Hazelton series as costing them first place overall, as the Stamps and Demons finally tied at 33 points, but Stamps, with their record of 16 wins against Kitimat’s 15, took the title. Both teams will have learned that a win at the beginning of the season is as good as the two points from the win in the last game and every lost point can come back to bite you when the 20-game season has been played.