Monday notes

The final week of the regular season is upon us...

What a difference two days makes. After Friday's games I said the Hurricanes should maybe be looking more at staying ahead of Kootenay for 2nd in the Central rather than continuing their focus on catching Calgary for top spot in the conference. But after two Hurricane wins and two Hitmen losses on Saturday & Sunday (with Sunday being a Hurricane win in the last head-to-head meeting of the two teams), Lethbridge is now in the drivers seat in that race.

Lethbridge has four games left and Calgary has two; if both teams win all their remaining games, Lethbridge will finish in first place. So, they now control their own destiny: win out and you get first in the conference. If they lose any points in those four games though, then they need to hope Calgary loses the same number of points in their two remaining games. So it's by no means a lock for the Canes, but it sure looks a lot better for them today than it did 48 hours ago.

Spokane and Tri-City remain tied for first overall with 102 points, with the Chiefs still holding a game in hand. It looks very much like their head-to-head meeting on Saturday in the Tri-Cities will go a long ways towards sorting out that race. Can't discount Vancouver either, who are still in the race for first overall although they are two points back of the co-leaders. For the Giants to get top spot overall though they need to run their table this week and hope for a couple losses from both the Chiefs and Americans. There are no other contenders for #1 overall....the Hitmen's two weekend losses eliminated them from having any shot at it.

The race for first place in the Eastern division (and #2 seed in the conference) is all but over. Regina had a good weekend and now need only one more win in their three games this week to clinch the spot. One loss by each of their three pursuers would do the trick as well. The team with the best chance of catching them still is probably Brandon, who close the season with a home-and-home with the Pats on the weekend. The Wheaties could take first place provided they won both ends of that home-and-home - but first the Wheaties need to beat Prince Albert on Wednesday while having the Pats lose to Moose Jaw that night.

Prince George played their last home game of the season yesterday, the first of the non-playoff teams to finish their home schedule. That's the last game in front of the Cougar faithful for overage Cougars Kalvin Sagert, Real Cyr, and Greg Gardner - who will break the team record for most games played in a P.G. uniform on Saturday in Kelowna. He has played 335 games as a Cougar over 5 seasons.