The Nanaimo Clippers reaped another reward for a strong season.
The city’s B.C. Hockey League team clinched first place in the Island Division on Monday with a 5-2 road win against the second-place Powell River Kings.
“It was nice to accomplish that goal with a few weeks left in the season…” said Mike Vandekamp, Clippers coach and general manager. “It puts us in a good position regarding home-ice advantage going into the playoffs. Other than that, it won’t mean much when the playoffs start. It is what it is – it’s a regular season accomplishment. We certainly have our sights set on more than that this year.”
Sheldon Rempal and Nicolas Carrier both had two-goal games against Powell River, Anthony Rinaldi also scored and Guillaume Decelles made 29 saves for the win.
Vandekamp said the remaining games in the regular season are now preparatory games for playoffs. The Clips will experiment a bit with special teams, but don’t plan to do much lineup juggling, as they’d prefer to build chemistry on forward lines and defence pairings.
The Clippers head off on the road to play the BCHL’s first-place Penticton Vees on Friday (Feb. 13), the Vernon Vipers on Saturday and the West Kelowna Warriors on Sunday.
“It’s nice that we’re heading on this trip without a lot of pressure on our team,” Vandekamp said. “It’s not so much focused on results as it is just the process and going out and playing hard … We can kind of have a little bit of a loose attitude and go out and have some fun with it.”
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