Fidgett marches Saints to 2013 BCIHL Championship with OT winner
By Bruce Fuhr
Cinderella, please step aside.
There’s a new rags to riches story and it’s staring the Selkirk Saints.
Speedster Cody Fidgett scored minutes into the overtime to power the Selkirk Saints to the 2013 BC Intercollegiate Hockey League title with a 3-2 victory over Simon Fraser University Clan Saturday night at the NDCC Arena in Nelson.
The victory, allowing Selkirk to clinch the best-of-three Championship series 2-0, completed perhaps the biggest turnaround in BCIHL history as the Saints went from bottom feeder to champion in one season.
“No I would never have thought this was possible,” Selkirk captain Jordan Wood said from center ice when asked about the amazing season that saw the Saints go from 5-19 in 2012 to 21-3 in 2013, topping it all off with an impressive 4-0 record in playoffs.
“This is just an unbelievable experience and I’m never ever going to forget this that’s for sure.”
Fidgett sent the Saints off the bench in bedlam when he sped down the left side into the SFU zone before wristing a shot past Graeme Gordon in the Clan nets.
Selkirk, winning Game one of the series Friday 2-0, trailed 1-0 after one frame and 2-1 following 40 minutes.
But a late goal in the second by Thomas Hardy coupled with a quick snapshot goal by Wood in the third period swayed the momentum into Selkirk’s favour and the home side never looked back.
“That late goal in the second period gave us some momentum,” said Selkirk assistant coach Jamie Friess.
“I thought (SFU) came out and took the play to us early . . . of course it doesn’t help when you take five minor penalties so I thought we were lucky to get through that unscathed,” Friess added.
Kale Wild and Brenden Silvester scored for SFU.
But this night, and season, belonged to every member of the Selkirk Saints.
“First of all (head coach) Jeff Dubois has done nothing but a fabulous job along with (athletic director) Kim Verigin to do what was needed to have a proper program at Selkirk,” Friess explained.
“And kudos go to Jeff for his hard work recruiting and to Kim to give us the freedom to do that but without the support of the whole Selkirk College faculty, right from the president right on through to management, we wouldn’t have a team right now.”
And once that team was assembled in September, everyone got on the same page said Wood, who experienced the lows of last season.
“When Jeff came in he brought in a bunch of new players and when everyone showed up we just had one goal and that was to win a championship,” said Wood.
“Everyone bought in . . . this is just unbelievable.”
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