West Kelowna, BC – They looked like a completely different team.
Following a 4-0 routing on home ice at the hands of the Salmon Arm Silverbacks on Friday night, the Warriors stormed back on Saturday with their biggest offensive output of the season, beating up on the Vernon Vipers 7-3.
The story of the hockey game was undoubtably Tyler Grahme, who scored his 7th, 8th, and 9th goals of the season for his first career BCHL hat trick. Grahme’s hatty also showed off his versatility as a player, as he was able to score a goal on the powerplay(7), shorthanded(8), and at even strength(9) in the game. Grahme was named as the game’s first star. West Kelowna also received goals from Elias Callgren (6), Ian Alonso (7), Sam LeDrew (19), and Caden Kemkaran-Humble (3).
Special teams were a mixed bag for the Warriors on Saturday. The powerplay had one of it’s best night’s of the season, as West K converted on two of their three man advantage opportunities. Meanwhile, the penalty kill went 4-for-6, as the Vipers connected with a pair of powerplay markers. The Warriors penalty killers, however, did kill of a stretch of near five minutes of various minor penalties, which put them down 5-4 twice, and even 5-3 for a thirty second period.
Edouard Gauthier was great between the pipes, stopping 33 of 36 Vernon shots for his first career BCHL victory, in his first BCHL start.
West Kelowna will wrap up their brief three game home stand next Saturday night, when the Blackfalds Bulldogs come to town. Puckdrop is slated for 7:00PM, and tickets are available at westkelownawarriors.ca
PHOTO: Tami Quan Photography
