Less than one second.
That was the difference between the Osoyoos Coyotes’ magical season coming to an end and moving on to the Kootenay International Hockey League (KIJHL) championship series.
As Coyotes’ players, coaches and fans found out the hard way last week, the game of hockey can break your heart. No hockey fan has ever seen anything quite like what happened to the Coyotes within 72 hours last week.
The Coyotes’ season came to a heartbreaking end Friday night when they lost 3-1 to the Chase Heat and ended up losing the best-of-five conference final series after winning the first two games.
It was the two games played in Chase that will haunt head coach and general manager Ken Law and this hard-working and talented group of players for a very long time.
No Hollywood scriptwriter could ever come up with a scenario to match what actually happened in Chase.
The Coyotes were less than three seconds away from winning this series in three straight games and moving on to the Kootenay International Junior Hockey League (KIJHL) championship series when Chase scored to force overtime.
The Heat scored in overtime to win the game and get back in the series, but the Coyotes still appeared to be very much in control.
Less than 24 hours later, Coyotes’ forward Judd Repole scored with 24 seconds left in the third period to give his team a 4-3 lead. Once again, a Coyotes victory and trip to the championship final appeared a certainty.
Believe it or not, Chase tied the score with less than one second remaining on the clock to again force overtime. The Coyotes were handed a penalty early in overtime and the Heat scored to secure another miraculous victory and tie the series.
To see a team score two goals in the final three seconds on consecutive nights in the playoffs to grab victory from the jaws of defeat is simply horribly bad luck.
In the fifth-and-deciding game on Friday night, the Coyotes got off to a fantastic start and dominated the first period and scored the first goal 10 minutes into the game when Colton Rhodes knocked a rebound into the Heat net.
The largest crowd in franchise history went nuts and it appeared everything was under control. However, Chase responded exactly two minutes later to tie the game and you could sense the next goal was going to be huge – and it was. In yet another horrible stroke of luck, Chase took the lead on a play that appeared to be at least two feet offside at the Coyotes’ blue line.
But the goal stood and you could feel the tension throughout the Sun Bowl Arena.
Things got palpably worse when the Heat extended the lead to 3-1 with a crucial insurance goal with only 10 seconds remaining in the second period.
Considering what had happened in Chase and facing a two-goal deficit and their season on the line, it would have been easy for the Coyotes to roll over and die in the third period.
But they emptied the tank once again and controlled play for the entire 20 minutes, but Chase played exceptionally good defence, veteran goaltender Nic Bruyere was rock solid and the Coyotes had a very tough time generating any quality scoring chances.
When the final horn sounded, Heat players, spurred on by a wildly supportive group of 150 fans who made the long trip from Chase, went nuts and mobbed Bruyere realizing their miraculous series comeback had been completed.
Coyotes’ players hugged each other and many could be seen shaking their heads.
Who could blame them?
It’s still hard to believe so much bad luck could fall on a team that played so hard, so fast and so well for so long – they had won 10 playoff games in a row until Chase tied game three with less than three seconds left on the clock.
What these players should – and must – always remember is they didn’t choke or play terrible hockey. They played fantastic hockey against a very good opponent and just ran into some truly historic and horrible bad luck.
There’s never been a scenario in the long history of the game where a hockey team at this level has lost two critical playoff games in the final three seconds, went on to lose both games in overtime and eventually lost the series.
It will likely never happen again. That will provide absolutely no consolation to players or fans, but don’t ever forget that you played inspirational hockey all season and you most certainly deserved a better fate.
