Repik scores the winner in Kamloops

VANCOUVER SUN

KAMLOOPS — The lunch-bucket crew is proving it can travel well.

The hard-working Vancouver Giants completed a three-game, three-cities weekend with a 3- 2 win in Kamloops on Sunday.

It was the 11th win in the last 15 games for the streaking Giants, who have lost only once in regulation during that stretch. Including a 3- 1 win in Seattle on Saturday — that victory followed a 4-0 triumph over the Thunderbirds at home Friday — the Giants are 6-0-0- 2 on the road in their last eight games.

Rookie Czech winger Michal Repik got the winner in the third period on the power play, picking the top left hand corner with a terrific snap shot that beat Blazers’ netminder Devan Dubnyk cleanly at 6: 44. The Giants scored with

Kamloops captain Ashton

Rome serving an undisciplined roughing penalty.

“ Any time you’re playing

three games in three nights in

three different cities, it’s a battle,” said Giants’ assistant

coach Craig Bonner. “You look

at that game and one word

sums it up — character. The

guys gave it all they had left in

the tank.

“We took advantage of them

taking a bad penalty in the

third.”

With the win, Vancouver improved to 18- 7-04 and moved two points ahead of idle Kelowna into second place in the B. C. Division. Kootenay has a seven-point lead on Vancouver, but the Giants have four games in hand.

On Teddy Bear Toss night at the Credit Union Centre, Blazers’ fans didn’t have to wait long to litter the ice with stuffed toys. Roman Tesliuk blasted a slapshot by Tommy Tartaglione 4:26 into the opening period.

The Giants got goals off rebounds from Tim Kraus and Kenton Dulle, with his first in the WHL, before the period was out, however, to take a 2- 1 lead.

Rome made it 2- 2 with the only goal of the second on a Blazers’ power play.

Tartaglione, in just his seventh start of the season, made 23 saves to record his fifth win.