It was a heroic ending to an otherwise tight-checking junior hockey game.
Kooper Gizowski saw the flickering Bat Single atop the CN Centre rafters and called game for the Prince George Cougars, earning a 3-2 overtime victory against the Victoria Royals in front of 4,319 fans on Sunday.
The 20-year-old accepted a laser-like feed from Terik Parascak during the five-minute, three-on-three skills competition and made no mistake on Royals goalie Ethan Eskit.
Jubilation could be felt on the ice for PG who snapped a three-game winless skid in the process.
“I was curling to the right side, and I was expecting the puck from Bauer, but he made a great play to Parascak and then Perry threw it back to me when I was wide open and then I found the corner and can’t really complain about it,” said Gizowski post-game to MyPGNow.com.
Gizowski’s 15th of the season ended a game that was not so aesthetically pleasing to the eye. Finding any sort of open ice was a challenge to say the least.
Besides that, Kayden Lemire showed off some super-human skill in the first period.
The 17-year-old forward finished a check in the corner and when everyone decided to think offense and exit the zone, Lemire hung back like a thief in the night and accepted a pass from Dimitry Yakutsenak.
He then had the presence of mind to put the stick between his legs, sniping a greasy backhand past Eskit for a 1-0 Cougars lead.
“He kind of slung the puck down to me and that was the first thing that came to mind so I decided to try it and capitalized on it so it was nice.” said Lemire post-game.
Cougars head coach and general manager Mark Lamb predictably did not take credit from Lemire’s newfound offensive prowess.
“I have seen him (Lemire) do that in practice and he is pretty good at it. That’s nothing for these kids and they do that stuff now. Back in the day, you would break your leg doing something like that or someone from the other team would break it trying to do it.”
Nolan Stewart struck back for the Royals, accepting a drop pass from Ludovic Perrault before using the Cougars defenseman as a screen, ripping a wrist shot past netminder Alex Levshyn.
PG took the lead back in the dying seconds of the opening 20 minutes as some blue-collar effort from Lee Shurgot and Aiden Foster eventually located a streaking Jett Lajoie who accepted a cross-ice pass and deflected the puck off his skate and into the opposing goal past Eskit.
Following a brief video review, the goal would stand.
In the second, the Royals would wake up from a slow start and muddied the waters for PG outshooting them 8-4 in the middle period.
Perrault evened the game at 2-2, peeling off the half-wall before blasting a shot past the stick side of Levshyn.
The 16-year-old rookie was stymied by the Ukranian-born goalie earlier in the period as he was stopped point blank on a 2-on-2 rush that included silky smooth-blueliner Timofei Runsto.
Parascak had a chance to win the game in the third period for the Cougars as he was sent in on a partial breakaway via Foster only stopped by the stick of Eskit.
Victoria outshot Prince George 24-20 in the game, however, both teams failed to score in their lone power-play opportunities.
The second half of the double-header was Be a Superhero Night in support of the Children’s Miracle Network where the Cougars wore Batman-themed jerseys during the game as well as capes in the pre-game warmup.
Prince George improves to 23-10-1-0 on the season, eight points up on the Penticton Vees for top spot in the B.C. Division.
The Vees have two games in hand.
The Cougars play Penticton on New Year’s Day from the South Okanagan Events Centre.
Prior to that, the Cougars are in Kamloops to take on the high-flying Blazers Tuesday night.
Lamb noted as we flip the page to 2026 and the second half of the year, the schedule isn’t any less forgiving.
“The schedule is tough right now. We have tough teams and division games, these two games against Victoria take a lot out of you and then you got to get back at it in Kamloops, and you know they will be looking for retribution and Penticton is a good, big hockey team.”
“Nothing comes easy, but we have to work for ourselves,” added Lamb.
Victoria on the other hand, claimed three out of a possible four points against the Cougars.
However, the Royals have lost eight games in either overtime or a shootout this season, three of which have come against the Cougars.
Royals bench boss James Patrick wasn’t overly enthused by the team’s start to Sunday’s game.
“I thought we had too many passengers in the first ten minutes knowing after last night’s game that you knew they would come out (the Cougars) and bounce back with determination. I thought in the first ten minutes they were dominating us and we talked about this and knew this – where we are in the standings we can’t have not everyone going and we can’t have games where we aren’t ready to start.”
“You got to fight to get inside and score against them as their defence boxes out as well as anyone in the league. You want to take advantage of these opportunities when they are missing a couple key players,” added Patrick.
The Royals drop to 14-11-5-3 on the season, tied for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference, but only two points separate fourth from ninth in the conference.
Cougars’ defenceman Carson Carels and stalwart goaltender Josh Ravensbergen are back in action with Canada at the World Junior Hockey Championships in Minnesota tomorrow at 5:30 Pacific Time against winless Denmark.
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