Ice to face Banff Rockies in 1st Round

The Niagara Ice will meet up with the Banff Rockies in a repeat of the Conference Finals from last year. Banff won the series 4-3, a series that Niagara led 3-2 but could not close it out. This season the Ice would finish in 7th place in the Conference and trail the 2nd place Rockies by 6 points. The Ice went 1-1-1 in the season series. The games were rather close, however these two teams havent seen each other since the 1st half of the season. A stat that sticks out is goal scoring for both clubs. Banff racked up 306 goals for which ranked 2nd in the Conference. Niagara ranked 5th in the conference with 289 Goals for. Banff was the better defensive team with a 2.94 goals against compared to Niagara at 3.33. 

Ice Media caught up with Gm, Cameron Szondi, before the team boarded a plane for Banff. 

When asked about the matchup this is what she had to say.

"They are a very good team over there. They can throw 3 really good offensive lines at you. Solid Defense and goaltending. Its an all around great team, they dont have many flaws. Theres a reason why they were 2nd in the Conference. Were definitely the underdog in this one. It ll be a tough series for us. No one is giving us much of a chance in this series so we need to use that as fire to come out and play hard. 

When asked what it would take for an Ice upset:

"There is motivation from last year loosing to them in the Conference Finals. We need to use that and the fact the odds makers are against us as fire. We played them pretty well this year. 2 of the games were by 1 goal. There was an overtime game. We know we can hang with them. We are a motivated group. We had a good run last year and know what it takes being the underdog. Every series we started on the road. Its no different this time. We need to be hungry and want it. Play hard every shift and play our game. There is definite Belief in the room."

The Ice are the definite underdog and will play the first 2 games of the series on the road. We ll have more coverage after Game 2 tonight. This article published after Game 1. The Rockies lead the series 1-0 after winning in overtime last night 4-3 . Brayden Point would complete the hat trick by scoring the game winner. A Costly penalty by Ice Defenseman, Jeremy Lauzon, 38 seconds into overtime. Banff definitely held the advantage in play. They outshot the Ice 46-23. Ice goalie, Casey DeSmith made 42 saves in the loss. Game 2 goes tonight in Banff at the Sulphar Mountain Lookout Arena. 7pm start time.