CHIEFS DROP 1-0 DECISION
The Kelowna Rockets spoiled the Chiefs regular season finale with a 1-0 win in the Spokane Arena on Monday night. 8,111 fans turned out for the game that was originally scheduled for Sunday night but was postponed to Monday after a majority of the Chiefs came down with an apparent bout of food poisoning.
Spokane will travel to Kennewick on Tuesday night to finish the regular season versus the Tri-City Americans in a game that was originally scheduled for Saturday. The game will be broadcast live on Comcast channel 78 in Spokane.
The win by Kelowna sealed up the number three seed in the Western Conference for the Rockets and guarantees the Chiefs, the number four seed, will face the Seattle Thunderbirds in the first round of the playoffs. The Chiefs and Thunderbirds will face off in the Spokane Arena on Friday and Saturday of this week with games one and two.
The Rockets tallied the only goal of the game at 10:15 of the first on a Brandon McMillan shot from the left point.
Mark Guggenberg stopped 22 Spokane shots for the shutout while Dustin Tokarski stopped 23 for the Chiefs. Tokarski also lowered his goal against to 1.97 per game and, barring any unforeseen circumstances, locked up the league’s lowest average for the season. Other than Tri-City and Spokane, every other team in the league has finished their 72 game schedule and Tokarski will be the only goaltender that qualifies for the league lead to have a goals against average under 2.00. Spokane will start James Reid in net Tuesday night versus Tri-City.
Tickets for the first two games of the playoffs are available by calling the Chiefs office at (509) 535-PUCK or TicketsWest at (800) 325-SEAT.
