SPRUCE KINGS FINISH ON TOP TO WRAP SEASON

There’s no trophy for being the firstplace team at the completion of the 20-game B.C. Hockey League season and so the memory of what the Prince George Spruce Kings accomplished on the ice Sunday in Chilliwack Coliseum will have to suffice.

Now that the strangest of seasons is complete, they know to themselves they’re champions of the BCHL’s Chilliwack threeteam pod after they defeated the Chilliwack Chiefs 4-2.

It was a sweet cap on a long month-anda-half of COVIDcaptivity for the Spruce Kings, who have spent the past 46 days living in hotel rooms and keeping themselves sequestered from the rest of the world in pursuit of their junior hockey dreams.

They returned as champions, just as the 2018-19 Spruce Kings did when they returned from Vernon clutching the team’s first-ever Fred Page Cup championship.

Because of the pandemic and the no-playoff scenario the past two seasons, no BCHL team has won it since.

The persistence of the dreaded virus into its second spring ruled out the postseason, so that meant the 20th and final game of the season for the Chiefs and Spruce Kings would determine the champions of the three-team Chilliwack pod.

Chilliwack came into the game having won five of the previous nine encounters this season with Prince George.

Each team came into the game with 13 wins in their previous 19 games and the Spruce Kings’ one-point advantage was gained in a shootout loss to the Chiefs on April 18.

The Spruce Kings boarded the bus right away from Chilliwack and returned to Prince George on Monday morning, putting an end to their 47-day roadtrip.