VICTORIA 4 - EDMONTON 3 (OT)
The Victoria Royals were never, ever, ever going to lose Saturday night against the Edmonton Oil Kings.
Not with a Taylor Swift-aided sell-out crowd at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre cheering them on, their star rookie Cole Reschny weaving his magic and their veteran defenceman Justin Kipkie bringing his ‘A’ game.
The end result was a Royals’ 4-3 overtime victory in their final Western Hockey League game of 2023, and a lucky fan walked away with a pair of tickets to Swift’s Eras Tour concert in Vancouver next December.
After Reschny had scored his 14th of the season late in the third period to force overtime, Kipkie took a nifty feed from the 16-year-old rookie, made a quick, spin move on the defenceman and beat Oil Kings rookie goaltender Hudson Perry with 1:10 left in the extra period to get the Royals the two points.
With no bad blood between the teams, as the Royals (22-13-0-2) and Oil Kings (11-20-1-1) see each other only once or twice a season, Victoria started slow and the Oil Kings, winners of three straight games coming into Saturday, jumped out to a 1-0 lead early in the first period courtesy a Ty Nash goal.
But Holt stood tall until his teammates got their offence going and that wasn’t until the final two minutes of the second period.
Kipkie buried a nice feed from Reschny with 1:42 left in the middle period, and a minute later Tanner Scott beat Perry from in close.
The Oil Kings took back the lead midway through the period when Skyler Bruce and Smyth Rebman scored two minutes apart.
Holt made 26 saves to pick up the win, while Perry, making just his second WHL start, finished with 30 saves.
The Royals have today off, then host another Alberta team on New Year’s Day as the Calgary Hitmen pay a visit to Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre.
LOOSE PUCKS: The Royals welcomed back forward Taydon Trembecky as he returned from missing 17 games due to injury… . The Royals were again without Robin Sapousek as the veteran forward is with Czechia at the world junior hockey championship.
