The CIHL finals are now underway, and the Terrace River Kings will have an opportunity to win their second Cameron Kerr Trophy in consecutive years this weekend.
The team will have two opportunities to do so: Saturday evening at 7pm, and Sunday afternoon at 1pm. So far in the 2025 playoffs, The River Kings recorded a bye-in into the semifinals, against the Hazelton Wolverines which was another close series between the two rivals. Terrace won game 1 on the road, lost game 2 at home and had a comeback win in game 3.
“We’re coming off of an amazing regular season. Obviously we had some injuries later in the year, and it was kind of a ‘next man up’ mentality with a lot of guys stepping up,” said center Trevor Ebeling.
“That win in Hazelton was huge, we had a shorter bench but everyone that was there was willing to give everything and that’s the mentality we got. Coming home for game 2, we got a couple tough bounces and didn’t play a 60-minute game.”
The River Kings ended up losing that game 3-2, despite a late game comeback. They did end up tying the game up with seconds left on the clock, but the goal was called off due to the helmet being knocked off of Brayden Evans, the Wolverines’ goaltender.
16 hours later, they had another chance to claim the series, in a win-or-go-home game 3.
“We turned it on late and made it close, but couldn’t get a bounce [in game 2]. But on Sunday, the group was pretty positive that we would get the job done. We went down 3-2, but there’s ‘bend but no break’ with this group.”
A 3rd period goal from Colin Bell sent the River Kings to the 2025 Cameron Kerr Trophy finals.
“Bend but no break” is somewhat of a trend for Ebeling and the River Kings, who haven’t been perfect in their playoff runs over the years, but have managed to come out with 3 Cameron Kerr Trophies in the last 4 seasons.
“It was a really short turn around. We were off the ice at 9:30pm on Saturday and were back out there around lunchtime on Sunday. There were some upset vibes around for a little bit, but you’ve got to just wipe them clean. All three years I’ve played for the River Kings against the Wolverines, we’ve won the first game, lost the second and then won the third. The experience of three seasons of this really helped out I think, sometimes you’ve got to just forget about [the loss] and get back to it.”
The opponent that the River Kings will look to beat in the finals this time around is the Quesnel Kangaroos, who were right behind them in the regular season standings with a 14-3-1 record. In game 1 on the road, the short bench had an eight hour bus ride to think about how they were going to prepare for game 1, which they won by a score of 3-2.
“We don’t have a full bench right now, but the group of guys we had there knew that they were going to go out there and give it everything. We’ve got a lot of players who are home-grown Terrace kids who are super proud to put on that jersey. Everyone stepped up. We had this chat before the game and when you’re on the road in a packed arena. We talked about weathering the storm and making sure that you survive that first 10 minutes. But we kind of chatted about being the storm and taking it to them.”
After forty minutes of play, the River Kings found themselves up 3-0 on the road. Quesnel scored two goals late, but it was enough to earn the victory.
“That chat really paid off for us because we were able to bang in two in the first, and then play a defensive game to hold on in the end. Quesnel has got a lot of skill and their backend has a lot of size where our defenses are a lot more mobile. Their defense is going to make sure that you feel them and know that they’re there all night.”
This will be a revenge series as well for the River Kings, as Quesnel beat them back in the 2023 finals, by a series score of 2-1. And if the River Kings do in fact win, you have to wonder if the word ‘dynasty’ can be thrown around the CIHL history books.
“We need to build off of last weekend and continue to be the storm. Not waiting for them to come to us, and taking the game to them. We have a fantastic group.”