STEAM DEFEATED BY COYOTES' POWERPLAY

It seems to be a common theme when the Summerland Steam and the Osoyoos Coyotes come together. A fast paced, hard, physical hockey game with a lot of powerplays. The Steam fell 6-1 to the Coyotes on Sunday afternoon, and it was the Coyote powerplay that was again their kryptonite. They capitalized on the powerplay three times, and scored twice in mere seconds after powerplays expired.

Summerland opened the scoring thanks to Cole Woodliffe's 21st of the season with 3:33 to play in the first period. Assists would go to Jack Mills and Braden Eliuk on the only goal of a fast, clean period. After the goal, Summerland would be assessed 3 penalties in a row that gave the Coyotes a full 3 minutes of 5on3 to start the second period.

The Yotes would do nothing on those powerplays, but would capitalize later in the period on a powerplay thanks to Luc Gradisar. Brett Jewell would add another just :16 seconds later and the lead switched to 2-1 Coyotes at the end of the second.

Summerland would get into penalty trouble again in the third and the Coyotes made no mistakes, cashing in for another powerplay goal from Luc Gradisar. Colten Braid would then pick up another goal with the man advantage with 6:08 to play before Colin Bell made it 5-1 with 5:55 to play. Gradisar would complete his hat trick with just over 2 minutes to play when a misplayed puck popped loose at the side and Gradisar was allowed to 'walk it in' to bring the score to 6-1.

Spencer Huff was solid for the Steam in the loss making 43 saves while Lawrence Langan stopped 35 of 36 in the victory for the 'Yotes.

These two teams will go head to head two more times this season, January 27th (7:30) and February 13th (7:30) both at the Summerland Arena. In the game on Sunday there wasn't much to write home about as far as major events. There was your usual every day hack and whack, trash talk, and even a couple of fights, but no running around hitting guys from behind or from the blind side like we usually see when these two teams meet. By all accounts it was an extremely well played game from both sides and remained even until Summerland got into penalty trouble in the third period. The remaining two games of the season series will be a lot of fun, and if we're lucky we might even get a look at this matchup sometime in March when playoff time rolls around.