By Alex Cooper - Revelstoke Times Review

The Revelstoke Grizzlies capped off a first place finish this season with a 5-3 win in a Feb. 16 exhibition game against the Northern Lights Junior A team from Bloomington, Minnesota.

"It's not every day that a Canadian gets to play against an American team and there's that sense of pride," said Grizzlies' coach Troy Mick. "The Olympics are going on and everything else, so it kind of made sense."

The Northern Lights, who play in the Minnesota Junior Hockey League, were at the end of a five game B.C. tour, which saw them rack up four wins in a row over Squamish, Port Moody, Aldergrove and Revelstoke's biggest divisional rival, the Princeton Posse.

The game, touted as a friendly exhibition game, ended up being a hard-fought battle with both squads using the match as an opportunity to get ready for their respective playoffs.

"The intensity of the game was pretty high," said Grizzlies' defenceman Kyle Ceretzke after the game. "It was a lot more than what we expected, which should be good because we don't play for another 10 days."

The Northern Lights scored first when Josh Shingler pounced on a rebound and shot the puck past Grizzlies' goalie Andrew Parent just over two minutes into the first period.

Both teams traded chances after that. The Northern Lights failed to score on two breakaways, while the Grizzlies strong fore-check led to several power plays, which they failed to capitalize on.

It wasn't until the dying seconds of the first when the Grizzlies tied it up on a goal from Luke Richardson, assisted by Ben Bula.

The goal sparked the Grizzlies, who dominated the first half of the second period.

"I think that goal did give us a pretty big boost," said Ceretzke. "We were all waiting to see what this team was like and they showed us their compete level was definitely up there."

The Grizzlies hemmed the Northern Lights in their own zone and had numerous chances but it wasn't until five minutes in that they finally put one in the net when Caleb Lister found himself alone in front the net, made a nice move around the Northern Lights goalie, and tucked the puck in the net while standing behind the goal line.

The Grizzlies made it 3-1 less than a minute later when Dayton Martens drove from the sideboards to the slot and, with a Northern Lights defenceman draped all over him, fired a goal home.

The game started to get chippy when Grizzlies' leading scorer and least-penalized player Faiz Khan got into a skirmish with Matt Solzberg of the Northern Lights. They were both handed ten-minute misconduct penalties.

"I had eight penalty minutes all year and just doubled it," said Khan. "Usually I'm pretty calm."

Both teams switched goalies halfway through the period but the play remained one-sided until the Northern Lights' Chris Weber scored on a penalty shot by dekeing out Grizzlies' backup goalie Cole Buckley, and sliding the puck into the open net.

The goal gave the Northern Lights a boost and Buckley was forced to make several big saves to keep the score 3-2 heading into the third.

The Grizzlies ran into penalty trouble in the third and had to kill off a 5-on-3 for 80 seconds while Jakob Reichert and Faiz Khan sat in the box.

Khan gave the Grizzlies a two goal lead with 4:09 to go in the third period, but the Northern Lights responded only six seconds later to get back to only one goal down.

Bruce Silvera iced the game for the Grizzlies after Jordan Bledsoe forced a turnover deep in the Northern Lights zone and fed the puck to Silvera, who buried the shot to make it 5-3.

Grizzlies' coach Troy Mick said he was happy with his team's performance.

"We were able to take the play to them quite a bit," he said. "We're the only team to beat them and we're pretty happy with that and now we'll get ready for the playoffs."

For the Northern Lights, it was their only loss on their B.C. tour.

"It was good hockey. I think they've got a pretty skilled club here and it shows with their record," said coach AJ Degenhardt. "Their coach does a good job and they've got a good, disciplined team."

Revelstoke hockey historian and Grizzlies' announcer Dennis Berarducci told the crowd that it was the first U.S. team he could remember playing in Revelstoke (no including the Spokane Braves, who play in the KIJHL).

Khan, who hails from California, had played against teams from Minnesota before, but this was his first game against a Minnesota Junior team.

"They were pretty good," he said. "It was surprising."

Before the game, the Grizzlies awarded its Fan of the Year award, which went to Kirsten Carlson and Steve Krywa. Velma and Doug Parkinson were awarded the Senior Fan of the Year award.

The awards for Fan Favourite and leading scorer were also given out. The former went to defenceman Brad Irving, while the latter went to Khan, who put up 68 points over the course of the season.

The Grizzlies will now get ready for the playoffs, which begin at home on Feb. 26 against an opponent still to-be-determined.

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