There may be a slight delay in some of the spring cleaning projects around here.
A lot of the brooms in town were thrown on the ice Monday night, just before and after the Prince George Cougars completed a three-game sweep of the Western Hockey League West Division semifinals.
With two goals in the Cougars' 2-1 win over the Spokane Chiefs, Ronald Petrovicky wrote a line into the WHL record book. This is the first time a sixth-place team out of the regular season will play for the division title.
The Cougars - a consensus pick to finish last - open the best-of-seven West Division finals Thursday in Seattle. After knocking off the No. 1-seeded Portland Winter Hawks, the Cougars have eliminated the third-seeded Chiefs, who didn't take their leave lightly.
As they did in the first two games, the Chiefs outshot the Cougars. Unlike the first two games, the Chiefs created more scoring chances.
But again it came down to the hot goaltender, Chris Mason, who started strong and finished stronger. He stopped 126 of Spokane's 133 shots in this three-game set.
"Their goaltender is really playing and they do intelligent things around him," Chiefs coach Mike Babcock said. "We generated a lot of shots, but not enough chances (in the two previous games). Tonight we generated some chances and didn't score."
John Cirjak put the Chiefs up early, stepping in front of Ian Walterson's clearing pass in the Cougars' zone and driving the puck through a screen and off Mason's stick into the net behind him.
"I knew I should have had it, but it went in and I just had to forget it," Mason said.
The Cougars got the equalizer on the power play. Peter Roed dug the puck out of the corner and sent it to Petrovicky in front of the net with 2:45 left in the first period.
Petrovicky's game-winner came at 6:59 of the third period when he beat Spokane's Kirk Dewaele for the puck, darted in and shot upstairs from close range.
The roll is over for the Chiefs.
"We've been a team that wouldn't go away," Babcock said. "But yet this playoff series was a lot like our year. We were way easier to put away than we were in the two previous years."
The Cougars have fanned hockey fever in the central interior of British Columbia. This game was sold out last Tuesday night. Fans spilling over into standing room pushed the crowd count beyond capacity, to 5,995.
They came to cheer Mason, who was never better than when he kicked aside a flurry 3 minutes into the third period with the game tied. He got a right pad on a shot by Trent Whitfield and made a sliding stop on the rebound.
"It was a desperate situation for them," Mason said. "I knew they'd come hard and they did."
Looking ahead to the Seattle series, Mason said, "We haven't had any success in their building, but we didn't have any in Portland or Spokane, either, until the playoffs."
Petrovicky, 19, a Slovakian, said in slightly broken English: "We believe (in) ourselves right now."
Cougars 2, Chiefs 1
Spokane 1 0 0 - 1
Prince George 1 0 1 - 2
First period- 1, Spokane, Cirjak 3 (unassisted) 12:24. 2, Prince George, Petrovicky 2 (Roed, Brewer) 17:15 (pp). Key penalties -Reich, Spo, 4:47; Betts, PG, 14:11; Reich, Spo, 16:27; Cisar, Spo, 17:30; Kwiatkowski, PG, 17:58.
Second period- None. Key penalties - Hamilton, Spo, 6:19; Tipler, PG, 14:02; Dewaele, Spo, 18: 16.
Third period- 3, Prince George, Petrovicky 3 (McKay) 6:59. Key penalties - None.
Power plays- Spokane 0 of 3. Prince George 1 of 5. Saves- Miller, Spokane, 11-7-6-24. Mason, Prince George, 10-9-12-31.
A - 5,995
