Austin Cozicar Previews the 2024 BCIHL Championship Tournament

This weekend, all five BCIHL teams will take part in a single-weekend tournament for the 2024 BCIHL Championship.

The tournament will kickoff on Thursday, February 29th with a play-in between the fourth-place SFU Red Leafs and fifth-place Logan Lake Miners. On Friday, the winner of the play-in will take on the third-place Okanagan Lakers for a chance to advance to the semi-finals. 

Meanwhile, the regular season champions, the Vancouver Island University Mariners, will face the second-place University of Victoria Vikes in the second quarterfinal game on Friday. The winner gets a bye to the finals on Sunday, while the losing team gets another chance in Saturday’s semi-finals.

The 2024 BCIHL Championship will be held at the Logan Lake Recreation Centre (31 Chartrand Ave.) in Logan Lake, BC. Tickets start at just $10 and are available now via shop.bcihl.ca.

Here’s how the teams stack up:

Vancouver Island University Mariners (17-3-0, 1st place)

Runners-up the three previous BCIHL Championships, it feels like this could be VIU’s year for their first ever league title. The previous two seasons, they were a clear number two behind a dominant SFU team that would win back-to-back titles, but this year, the Mariners are the clear-cut favourites with a regular season goal differential of +68 (the next best team, the Vikes, have a +29 differential), and ended the season with a 12 game winning streak, only losing three games the whole season.

An over a point-per-game player with the Humboldt Broncos (SJHL) and Comox Valley Glacier Kings (VIJHL) last year, rookie Logan Kurki has taken the BCIHL by storm, leading the scoring race with an incredible 50 points (17 goals, 33 assists) in 19 games. Kukri bolsters a strong returning class including BCIHL goal-scoring leader Brock Palmer, who has 26 goals and 40 points, and Gavin Rauser, who sit in the top three of BCIHL scoring. The high-powered offence is bolstered by three very capable options in net with Jeremy Robar, Wyatt Fournier, and Derek Krall.

University of Victoria Vikes (14-5-1, 2nd place)

UVic will be looking for their first BCIHL title since 2017. If there’s one team the Mariners will be looking behind their back to, it’s the Vikes. UVic handed the Mariners two of their three losses on the season, taking them to overtime in another close game. In an exhibition series last weekend, the Vikes bested the Mariners on 5-2 Friday before falling 3-2 in overtime. The opening quarterfinal between one and two figures to be tight, and regardless of the result, there’s a good chance we’ll see these two teams in the final.

After a few years of rebuilding after their last championship, this Vikes team enters the 2024 playoffs as a force to be reckoned with. Led by a large contingent of rookies including BCIHL defence scoring leader Owen Evers (9 goals, 13 assists, and 22 points) and Sam Schofield (11 goals, 15 assists, and 26 points). Former SFU forward Jacob Paler-Chow has been a key midseason addition to the team, putting up six goals and 10 points in eight games. In net, Shawn Parkinson has been solid, going 10-3-1 as the starter, with a .909 SV% and a 2.72 GAA.

Okanagan Lakers (10-9-1, 3rd place)

The Lakers have shown improvement every season they’ve played in the BCIHL, and in their third season in the league, they finished just above the .500 mark. With former Captain Arik Breton, Alternate Captains Noah Turanski and Ty Banser, and goaltender Daniel Paul having graduated last year, it’s largely been a new look team this year. The team’s top seven scorers — KT Walters, Carter Bettenson, Matthew Johnston, Joe Davidson, Coletyn Boyarski, Johnny Carmichael, and Ethan McKinley — are all rookies and standout forwards from the KIJHL. Rookie defenceman Zach Park was a point-per-game player with the Osoyoos Coyotes last year, and the skill has translated, as he is 4th in points from the blue line in the BCIHL. Okanagan has a strong tandem in net with Jaden Little and Connor Lemieux, who they can pretty much alternate.

The Lakers get to sit out the first game, and play the winner between the Red Leafs and the Miners. With a combined 8-2 record against both teams, the Lakers will be the odds-on favourites in Friday’s first quarterfinal. If they do move on, however, they’ll face pretty stiff competition against UVic or VIU. (Should they make the finals, they’ll need to face both of the top two teams). Okanagan has only one win against each of UVic and VIU. Should the Lakers go the distance, it’ll be a grueling three games in three days, having to best both of the best regular season BCIHL teams.

Simon Fraser University Red Leafs (7-11-2, 4th place)

The Red Leafs are the reigning back-to-back BCIHL champions, but this is largely a new team with much of last year’s roster joining the non-conference squad. It’s been a season of ups and downs with a young team, but SFU has been able to play some competitive hockey, winning four of their five games against Logan Lake with their only blip a shootout loss, two wins against the Lakers, and a win and an overtime loss versus UVic, not to mention some close finishes. The one team they’ve been unable to solve in any fashion is VIU, going 0-5.

It will be a tough pathway to the finals, needing to play four games mostly against teams that have had the upper hand all season. But they match up favourably against the Miners in the play-in, and perhaps they can roll that momentum into a good game against the Lakers and beyond. Nick Wagner has found another gear as one of two returnees from last season’s squad, leading the team with 11 goals and 26 points in 19 games. Max Lightfoot, who is in his second stint with SFU, ACHA transfer Leeam Tivers, and former Grandview Steelers (PJHL) forward Alex Pettingale round out the offence. Goaltender Cooper Giesbrecht has been a workhorse, playing in 14 games and keeping the team in many games — despite a losing record, he sports a respectable .901 SV%. If SFU makes some noise, it will likely be in good part due to Giesbrecht’s play.

Logan Lake Miners (2-18-0, 5th place)

The Miners look much improved over last year. Despite their struggles — particularly early in the season — they looked much more competitive as the season went on. Putting up their first program win ever against UVic on the road on November 24th, they finished with two wins on the season after a 4-3 shootout win vs SFU at home on February 2nd. They added some serious talent this season with La Ronge Ice Wolves (SJHL) Alumnus and ACAC transfer Gavin Mattey and former Golden Rockets (KIJHL) captain Jordan Lario. Mattey and Lario are fourth and sixth in BCIHL scoring, while Slovakian forward Marian Pazitka (who had 55 goals and 159 points in his final year of junior) rounds out the offence. They’ve got a long ways to go, but they’ve got some solid pieces to build around. Matthew Ens has seen the lionshare of games in net, and has done a more than respectable job facing over 50 shots per game.

The odds are even longer for this Miners team to go far in this tournament. They have beaten SFU, who they will face in the opening play-in, and have matched up not bad against UVic, should they get that far. Maybe they can draw some inspiration from the Okanagan Lakers in their inaugural season at the 2022 BCIHL Championship. After a one-win season, they stunned in the playoff opener, knocking out UVic, before falling 5-1 in a semi-finals game that was more competitive than the scoreline would indicate against the eventual runner-ups, the Mariners.