Storm Put Up Valiant Effort But Swept By Revelstoke in Birks Division Final
KAMLOOPS, BC—The Kamloops Storm have been eliminated from the 2024 Kootenay International Junior Hockey League Playoffs.
The Storm tried to rally from a 3-0 deficit but couldn’t come back to beat the Doug Birks Division regular season champion Revelstoke Grizzlies. The Grizzlies beat the Storm 3-2 at Mac Isle to sweep their divisional final in four straight games.
It’s the second straight series that the Grizzlies has won in the minimum number of games. They swept the Chase Heat in the first round.
For the first time in this series, Kamloops didn’t score the first goal. Revelstoke led 2-0 after the first period on goals from Brady Schwab (Snohomish, WA) and Austin Wooley (Cranbrook, BC).
Nathan White (Calgary, AB) scored his second of the post season to give the Grizzlies a 3-0 lead just over a minute into the second period. Revelstoke was enjoying a two man advantage at the time when White went upstairs on a slapshot on Storm goalie Colton Phillips-Watts (Quesnel, BC).
Kamloops captain Evan Clark (Kamloops, BC) finished off a brilliant two man passing play with Ryan Larsen (Kamloops, BC) to cut the deficit to 2-1 at the 7:03 mark of period two.
The only goal of the third period came from first year Sam Zulyniak (Kamloops, BC). His shot at 12:41 went high glove side on Revelstoke goaltender Jozef Kuchaslo (Mission, BC). Kuchaslo stopped 28 shots for his seventh straight playoff victory. Phillips-Watts handled 33 in the Storm goal.
The series elimination marked the end of the Junior “A” careers of Kamloops overage players: Evan Douglas (West Kelowna, BC), Nathan Bohmer (Logan Lake, BC), Samuel Lewis (Kamloops, BC), Devin Benson (Kamloops, BC), Phillips-Watts and Clark.
Lewis and Benson would have been factors in the series if they played. Both were injured. Benson played sparingly in game two.
The Grizzlies now await the winner of the series between the North Okanagan Knights and the Princeton Posse in the Bill Olhausen Division final. That series is deadlocked at two games a piece.
