With the Alaska Division II State Hockey Tournament just around the corner, teams all around the state are wrapping up their final games of the regular season. For the peninsula, that means one more (maybe) matchup between the Kenai Kardinals and Soldotna Stars with an automatic bid to the state tournament at stake.
The season series between the hockey programs sits at one win apiece–SoHi taking the Kardinals down 3-0 early in the season to win the Peninsula Ice Challenge; and Kenai returning the favor earlier this month, knocking the Stars off in their own house 5-3.
A win for either team not only comes with bragging rights for the season but carries a lot of weight into the state tournament…A LOT of weight. The winner of Friday’s Kenai v. SoHi game will receive one of the three automatic tournament bids allocated for the Northern Lights Conference, the loser will have to settle for an at-large bid, and the overall seventh seed at state.
Despite critical losses to Kenai and Soldotna last week, Palmer has first place in the Northern Lights Conference (NLC) all but sown up. Short of an unlikely loss against Kodiak when the Moose visit the Rock this weekend, they will win the conference and head to state with the second overall seed. (Houston, with the best record in the state and a stranglehold on the Aurora Conference, has already secured the top spot in the tournament).
A win for the Kardinals would tie them with Juneau Douglas in conference records, but last weekend’s back-to-back losses to the Crimson Bears means the highest Kenai can go is third in the NLC.
“We’re ready as we’re gonna be. It’s the last game of the season, [we’re] having good practices,” said Kenai Head Coach, Scott Sheldon. “It’s the third game of our three-game series, it’s gonna be cold, it’s gonna be fun, it’s gonna be awesome.”
“There’s a lot of parity this year,” Sheldon said of the strength of DII teams across the state but added he is excited by the prospect of playing state tournament games on peninsula ice. “That does help. It’ll be the first time in a while, and that’s very nice.”
If the Stars are able to pull out a win, they will slide into the second-place spot in the NLC, thanks to a two-game split with Juneau Douglas in December and a better overall record than the Crimson Bears.
According to Stars head coach, Anthony Zurfluh, the outcome is going to come down to which team brings their A-game. “We know what they’ve got, they know what we’ve got, it’s a matter of what guys are gonna show up. We enjoy playing those guys, it’s a battle all the time.”
Zurfluh shared how his team’s rebound from a tough stretch earlier this season, a stretch which included a loss to Kenai on SoHi’s home ice, has the Stars in a good place. “That valley trip kind of mentally beat us up and physically beat us up and coming back with three losses that was tough. Then dropping one to Kenai we were kind of trying to find our identity a little bit, and once we kind of got to the pucks going in the net against Homer and being able to take down Palmer and getting back on the right track, I feel we’re pretty strong right now.”
A win for Kenai will more than likely set them up for an opening-round game against the North Pole Patriots, who are locked into second place in the Aurora Conference. A win for Soldotna would likely mean a first-round date with the Juneau Douglas Crimson Bears.
A loss for either team almost certainly means a showdown against Palmer in the opening round of the state tournament. Although, that’s not an entirely unpleasant prospect, considering both Kenai and Soldotna took care of business against the Moose in matchups on the peninsula last week.
One final note: this may not be the last time the Stars and Kardinals square off this season. A SoHi win would put both teams on the same side of the state tournament bracket, setting up a potential semi-final showdown. If Kenai wins, the two teams would be on opposite ends of the bracket, meaning the next time they could meet would be in the DII State Championship.
Friday night’s game will be broadcast live on KKIS 96.5 FM and streamed on radiokenai.com. Puck drops at 7:00 p.m. with pregame coverage beginning at 6:40 p.m.