It’s been a bittersweet week for fans of the West Kelowna Warriors.
On Friday night, the BCHL club’s faithful celebrated the news that the franchise would remain in the Okanagan.
Four days later, the 2016-17 season came to an abrupt end for the defending Canadian junior A champs.
On Tuesday night, the hometown Merritt Centennials defeated the Warriors 4-3 in overtime, sweeping Rylan Ferster’s club from the BCHL playoffs in four straight games.
Stephan Seeger tied the game for Merritt with 26 seconds remaining in the third, then scored again at 2:03 of the extra period to finish off the best-of-seven Interior Division first-round series.
The Warriors fell in a hole early in the series, losing the first two games by just one goal at home—6-5 and 4-3 in triple overtime. Merritt was a 6-2 winner in Game 3 on Monday.
Warrior fans breathed a sigh of relief on Friday night at Royal LePage Place when it was announced the club wouldn’t be leaving the city after all.
In January, owner Mark Cheyne had an agreement in principle to move the club to North Delta next season.
But when that deal fell through, a group of local investors stepped up to assume ownership of the Warriors, keeping the team at Royal LePage Place for the 2017-18 BCHL campaign.