There’s winning the first game of the season, and then there’s what the Prince George Cougars did last night. (Friday)
The Cougars shut out the Tri-City Americans 9-0 in front of 2,825 excited fans at the CN Centre in their season opener.
“There was a lot of good things, a lot of things we talked about in training camp we wanted to put into our game, some things that probably weren’t too noticeable for a lot of people, but within our group it was really noticeable and it was stuff we wanted to do, and it led to a big win,” said Cougars Head Coach and GM Mark Lamb on the Post Game Show on 94.3 The Goat.
The Cats got off to a hot start, putting up five goals in just the first period.
Zac Funk scored the team’s first goal of the season off an Ondrej Becher face-off win.
Funk scored two more goals for the hat-trick, and added a pair of assists, earning him the first star across the entire CHL for the night.
Won’t you take me to, Funkytown.@PGCougars | #WHLHatTricks | #WHLOpeningWeek pic.twitter.com/mfCQUdUADI
— The WHL (@TheWHL) September 23, 2023
Funk’s scoring touch was contagious, as Viliam Kmec also scored three goals, Terik Parascak scored two, and Ondrej Becher added one.
We think Viliam missed scoring goals. @PGCougars | #WHLHatTricks | #WHLOpeningWeek pic.twitter.com/alwYKlUJiO
— The WHL (@TheWHL) September 23, 2023
In his WHL debut, undrafted netminder Josh Ravensbergen stopped all 28 shots he faced.
“For a rookie that’s basically come out of nowhere, he’s a listed player that played really well last year,” Lamb said.
“He’s a very confident kid, he works very hard off the ice, and usually when that happens, something good happens in the goal, and he played well tonight.”
The Cougars (1-0-0-0) will play the Americans (0-1-0-0) again tonight at the CN Centre. (6:00)
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