Hello and welcome to SMJHL Post-Game Live, presented by Gatorade!

<div align="center">Are you thirsty for success? Wish you had a sports drink to wash away your last whiff on the puck?

Well, we can’t guarantee it’s good for you, but you sure can spray it in your face!



Gatorade: we sponsored this bottle but he’s actually just drinking water. RIP.</div>

In tonight’s matchup, Kelowna takes it on the road to Vancouver, the fifth meeting of the season for these bitter Western Conference rivals. @ . Before tonight’s game, Kelowna held wins for all 4 prior contests, the Whalers eager to get revenge in front of their home crowd for the previous week’s 2-0 shutout. Before we go into our recap of the game, let’s take a look at the history between these two teams.

<div align="center"> A LOOK BACK
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Season 27 ended with the Colorado Mammoths as the Four-Star Cup Champions. Vancouver fans no doubt bitterly remember Kelowna’s domination in the first round of the playoffs, Kelowna fans the glory followed by heartbreak as Colorado went on to victory over the Knights in 6 games. Happily for both teams’ overall outlook, the Mammoths went on to dominate the Montreal Impact in much the same way, winning the Cup final with another stellar performance.

Season 28 was another rebuilding year for both teams, particularly for Kelowna. Vancouver and Kelowna spent the pre-season and most of the early season duking it out for second place in the West (behind Colorado), but after the Mammoths peaked too early, Vancouver snuck up on both teams. With a series of surprise upsets, the Whalers jumped all the way to first place in the standings in the final week of the regular season, holding a game in hand over the previous season’s champs. The two rivals would split up and ultimately both lose out in the first round, Prince George giving Vancouver a surprise waxing in five games, and Colorado closing with a win in game six. Unfortunately for the Knights, Colorado would go on to lose to Prince George in the Western Conference finals, leaving them squarely at the bottom of the league. The Western conference had some Eastern fans calling for a change to postseason seeding format from geography to ‘true’ seed.

However, it takes a juniors team less time to rebuild, and so Kelowna appears to have pulled themselves out of the muck, but Vancouver is still struggling to hang on…

<div align="center">Highlight Reel</div>

<div align="center">1. Cara Hohenberg fires up Knights offense with the first score

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Knights rookie Cara Hohenberg has had a tremendous start to her career. One of Kelowna’s late-round draft pick steals, she combines with veteran Knights Dieter Dominique and German-born defenseman Fedor Shirobokov to rip the puck past Vancouver goalie Stiv Dingels. Maybe she fired up her team a bit too much, best friend and fellow countryman Mia Landvik getting called for a hooking penalty just thirty seconds later that Vancouver was able to capitalize on—but Landvik would redeem herself later in the period by setting up teammate Mikael Talo for a power play goal, his first of the evening.

<div align="center">2. Talo and Linna make Vancouver pay--twice

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Coming into the second period, the score was tied 2-2, all momentum in favor of the Vancouver Whalers as they scored the only goal in the second period. But hell hath no fury like a first line scorned--though we could’ve chosen either one of the Talo-Linna hat trick goals to feature, we chose the second, a sweep-and-dunk pass as linesman Mikko Linna sets up his centerman for a ruthlessly fast score midway through the second period.
The reason we chose this goal in particular is because it was a nearly-exact mirror of the goal the dynamic duo had scored on the power play at the beginning of the period, only eleven minutes before. Known for their strategic minds, in contrast to some of their more fiery teammates, Linna and Talo must have found a weakness of the Vancouver defense to exploit together—the two were seen conferencing on the bench between shifts.

<div align="center">3. Conklin Owen’s last-ditch power play goal

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The final goal of Mikael Talo’s hat trick goal might have silenced a lesser team, but down by two in the final period of the game, the Vancouver Whalers continued to fight fiercely. This beautiful Makarov-Ross-Owen goal was one of the prettiest goals of the night, and aside from Linna and Talo’s freakish chemistry, the Knights would’ve been sunk. Unfortunately for Vancouver, they couldn’t score again in the last two minutes to force OT, but this final goal for a 5-4 score eft their team with a reason to keep their heads held high going into the locker room.

Now, let’s turn our attention to the rinkside booth for our…

<div align="center">INTERVIEW INSIGHTS
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Tonight we’re in the booth with Knights GM Rich, who graciously volunteered his time to answer our questions.

Quote: Tonight your Knights had a five-point game. Four of those points were scored by veteran captain Mikko Linna, with a goal of his own and an assist on each of Mikael Talo's hat tricks. What do you think is the secret to their success?

"It's really not a secret. They're both extremely talented individual players, but now that they've spent a good amount of time playing on the same line, we're seeing that they've established some chemistry. You can really see that in action on nights like this."

Quote: Recently the team has come under a bit of fire for their high penalty minutes. Tonight, two of the goals they've given up were scored on a Vancouver power play. Do you think their proclivity for unnecessary penalties can be fixed before the playoffs?

"That's something we're always working on. A big part of our game is our physical play. We play with an edge on the defensive end. Most of the time it works in our favor, but we know that occasionally it's going to result in some penalties. You've got to let players like Landvik, Justice, and Shirobokov play their game, but they've also got to play smart. That's something we'll continue to work on."

Quote: The Knights are currently top of the West in standings, and just a few games back from the top of the league. Is this the year we could see Kelowna lift the Cup?

"Every year, that's our goal. I think the team we have this season is capable of reaching that goal. We've just got to keep doing what we've been doing. We need to continue to be good on the power play and better on the penalty kill than we were tonight, and keep up our good defensive play. If we can do those things, I think we'll be tough to beat in the playoffs."

…

With one last segment before we wrap, we bring you the…

<div align="center">Cascade Scrub of the Game – Alfred Holiday, </div>

They say professional athletes never take a holiday—well, that rule should maybe be put to professional GMs instead. Vancouver’s Alfred Holiday killed his team, both on time in the box and on turnovers. While he intercepted a few pucks and blocked some shots for his team, leaving him with an even 0 plus/minus, his poor passing numbers made him create almost as many turnovers as he achieved, with a huge 14 of his passes intercepted by Knights players, and his initial hooking penalty set up a Kelowna power play goal—so, naturally, he took another immediately after.

With those factors combined, Holiday is the Cascade Scrub of the Game! If Alfred wants to come out of scrub-land, he’ll need to bring his skating up to speed so he doesn’t spend quite so much time relying on his stick to catch opponents' offensive weapons, and use Cascade to get those dishes squeaky clean, every time.


That will do it for tonight! Thanks to all of our viewers for tuning in, and we’ll see you next week!

<div align="center"> FINAL SCORE
- 4
- 5
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