The visiting Peninsula Panthers and host Victoria Cougars wasted little time knocking the rust off.
Peninsula will have a harder time dusting off the defending South Division champion Cougars, who took a 1-0 lead in the Vancouver Island Junior Hockey League semifinal series on Thursday night at the Archie Browning Sports Centre, courtesy of a 6-3 victory.
Cody Hodges scored three goals for the Cougars, who had sat for eight days. Peninsula rested for seven.
Game 2 goes tonight at 7:30 at Panorama Recreation Centre before returning to Esquimalt on Sunday at 3:30 p.m., with Game 4 back at Archie Browning on Monday at 7:30 p.m.
The Panthers struck first Thursday, on an early power play as Justin Post redirected a pass from the corner just 4:12 into the game, but the Cougars came clawing back as Hodges tied it at 5:21. Brett Lervold then gave the home side a 2-1 lead at 19:47 of the opening frame.
A power-play goal from Hodges and short-handed marker from VIJHL points leader Nathan Looysen, just 1:36 apart late in the second, was the difference. Hodges added his third early in the third.
鈥淚t鈥檚 big and leads us into that next one,鈥� Hodges said of the win. 鈥淲e still need to pick it up a bit, I think. It鈥檚 good to get the first W and we look forward to [tonight]. It was a little weird taking a long break like that, but we got practice in and we worked on systems.鈥�
Garnett Roberts had tied it up at 2-2 in the opening two minutes of the second for Peninsula. Victoria then rang a puck off the post and Lervold鈥檚 backhand was gloved by Panthers' goalie Alex Olson shortly after. They did get to Olson 15 minutes into the middle frame
Trevor Owens added a power-play goal for the Panthers in the third and Domenic Kolbeins replied with an empty-netter.
Cougars goalie Anthony Ciurro faced 22 shots, while Olson made 35 stops for Peninsula.
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