This is Hockey. Great Hockey. Period.

At 15:03 in the second overtime The Fernie Ghostriders slapped one last puck in the goal to end the most exciting playoff game so far. In that last period, one short burst of three hundred seconds compressed all the emotion of seventy minutes of play in the four preceding periods. The stands remained standing. Stomping. Shouting. Cheering the Riders on.

And the Ghostriders rose to the occasion.

The game was clean hard skated hockey at it’s best. Both the Kootenay Storm and the Fernie Ghostriders bring highly refined skills to the ice. The Riders are more of a “team�, with blind passing hitting it’s mark and the puck slapping from one side of the ice to the other as it moves from one end of the rink to the other. The Ghostriders stuck with their game of passing and skating like smoke.

The Kamloops Storms mixed passing with fast break hockey. A couple of their skaters are fast enough to move ahead of the pack and head for the goal for a one-on-one. Occasionally it worked, but more often than not, one of the Fernie boys would catch up and shovel them off into the corner of the rink.  Losing their shot on goal, the only option would be to center and hope another Storm was in place.

Most notable was the clean play. There were few penalties and a couple were clearly inadvertent. Hockey pure and simple. Great hockey.

The first goal scored a few minutes into the first period. The Storm dropped one in, putting the Ghostriders in catch-up mode right off the bat. Following that one goal, the teams played evenly back and forth between the nets with no one team gaining a clear edge except for the single early goal. In the last minutes of the period, the Ghostriders scored and the period ended tied, one one.

The second period started hard and fast, with the feeling out and hesitancy of the first period gone. Fernie Ghostriders scored. The Storm scored. Again, they skated drove the length of the ice time after time, trading shots on goal, stealing then stealing back again. There was no favored team. It was even. The score reflected the time on the ice. Two to two at the end of the second period.

The third period brought more of the same. The Ghostriders scored first. The Storm countered with a goal of their own. The puck passed from end to end with no clear winner. Three to three at the end of the third period.

Immediately after the third period, with only a few minutes break, the teams played a 10-minute sudden death overtime period. Zip Zip.

After this period, they trooped into the locker room while the Zamboni ran the ice and no doubt the coaches delivered a rousing 15-minute spiel and pump-up. On the ice again, the tension was palpable. The payers never let the puck rest. Two skaters or more fought for control. There was no let up. A loose puck was a puck seeking company. And the puck received plenty.

Almost 5 minutes into the period, the Ghostriders skated the puck to the Storm end, passed to Trever Hertz on the left side and he slapped it in. Game over.

There are times in sports when you wonder why one team won and the other lost. In this case, Smith, for the Ghostriders goal, played a huge part in the win. On the breaks, with the Storm skaters driving down for a one-on-one, he rose and blocked shot after shot. Twice in the first OT period alone, what seemed to be certain Storm goals, Smith caught the shot, pushing the Storm back.

Tonight at 7:30, the puck drops for the second game in the series. This is it. This is hockey pure and simple. Go. There is nothing else in town worth doing between 7:30 and 10 PM. Nothing. Just Hockey.