Spokane Chiefs sweep Winterhawks, advance to 2025 WHL Championship Series
Portland, Ore.- The stage is set for the 2025 WHL Championship Series.
After sweeping their respective conference championships, the Spokane Chiefs and Medicine Hat Tigers will battle for the WHL supremacy.
Spokane punched its ticket to the big dance with a comeback 6-4 win in Game 4 against the Portland Winterhawks on Thursday night.
WHL Player of the Year nominee Andrew Cristall scored twice to give Spokane separate early leads, but the Winterhawks kept clawing back in front of a ravenous crowd at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum to seize the lead just 24 seconds into the final frame.
Regular season leading scorer Shea Van Olm sealed the sweep with an empty-net goal.
With the Hawks up 4-3 with just over five minutes left in regulation, veteran forward Rasmus Ekstrom and Owen Martin struck with 2:36 of each other to take the lead for the fourth and final time of the night.
Dawson Cowan turned aside 39 shots to go 4-0-0-0 in the Western Conference Championship with a 4.60 goals-against average and a .846 save percentage.
Spokane is the highest-scoring team in the 2025 WHL Playoffs with 85 goals in 15 games.
With a 10-4 win in Game 1, the Chiefs became the fifth team in the past decade to bury 10 goals in a playoff match.
Spokane followed the dominant outing up with a wild 6-5 overtime win in Game 2, featuring an Andrew Cristall hat trick and Chase Harrington overtime winner.
Eight different Spokane skaters scored in an 8-5 road win in Game 3 to tee up Thursday’s elimination match.
This marks Spokane’s fifth trip to the WHL Championship Series and their first since winning the Ed Chynoweth Cup and the Memorial Cup in 2008.
The Chiefs have an all-time record of 2-2 in the league final, their first coming in 1991, and have gone on to win the Memorial Cup twice.
