Senior Flyers playoff schedule released

FORT ST. JOHN, B.C. — The Fort St. John Senior Flyers have released their post-season schedule.

The North Peace Hockey League (NPHL) club will open against last season’s league finalists, the Dawson Creek Canucks, starting early next week.

Despite their 5-15-0 regular season record, the squad is optimistic, as has not been the case previously.

After an 0-10 start, the Flyers managed to split wins and losses in the season’s second half, including a 7-4 win over Dawson Creek on January 16th.

Team head coach Erik Nystrouk says his young team “caught the feeling of winning” after beating High Prairie 8-7 on December 14th.

“It boiled down to some players getting used to playing in the league,” said Nystrouk. “We have some new players and some veterans playing some pretty good hockey [going into the playoffs].

“After High Prairie, something just clicked. They’d all won games before, but with no wins last year, they had a negative mind-space. Winning that game just got them back to the winning feeling.”

Defeating the Canucks in a best-of-seven series will be no small task.  Dawson Creek has defeated the Flyers in three of four games, including a 12-0 win on January 31st.

Nystrouk says the team needs to lean on its veterans like Nolan Lagace, Cole Calliou and goaltending trio Landon Hatton, Ty Gullickson and Edward Stotz to have any hope.

“In the playoffs, anything can happen,” said Nystrouk. “It’s seven games. You have to win four of them. It could be a sweep, it could go all seven games. If we have the right combination of things happen, we could have an upset.” 

The NPHL playoffs will begin for the Flyers on Monday, February 10th at the Memorial Arena in Dawson Creek before coming to North Peace Arena for game two, scheduled for Tuesday, February 11th.

After heading to Dawson Creek for game three, the series will return to Fort St. John on Saturday, February 15th. 

If necessary, game six will take place at home for the Flyers on Wednesday, February 19th.

All games will start at  8:30 p.m. 

More information on the Flyers is available on the team’s Facebook page.

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