Nanaimo and Surrey will battle in their first BCHL playoff series since 2007. In six games this past season the Clippers held a record of 3-2-0-1.

By Dan Marshall

business end

Clippers and Eagles meet in first playoff series in 15 years

Apr 1, 2022 | 11:54 AM

NANAIMO — The Clippers and Eagles played six times in the regular season but they haven’t had a post season series since 2007.

Nanaimo won the first round best of seven in five games back then and went on to win the Fred Page Cup however head coach Colin Birkas is only concerned about how his team matches up with the current Eagles roster.

“It’s a team we’ve had some success against but they’re well coached, their young guys contribute and there’s a lot of talent over there.”

Nanaimo is the favourite in a battle of the three versus six seed in the Coastal Division and the Clippers went 3-2-0-1 in the season series.

The Clippers will be short some key bodies at the start of the series with Tristan Fraser sitting out games one and two with a suspension and Charles Tardif needing more time to heal from an upper body injury.

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However Nanaimo’s top offensive defenceman Michael Craig has just returned after being on the shelf nearly two full months.

“I think he’s the best all around defenceman in our conference,” Birkas said. “To get him back and getting some confidence in our last game was big. We do have some injury concerns right now but we do have Craig back and that’s a spark.”

Surrey will have waited nearly two full weeks to get the post season started while Nanaimo has been off for only a week heading into the series.

Birkas downplayed the notion the Clippers opponents may need to shake off some rust early in the opening game April 1.

“It’s a talking point. But you could talk it up to an advantage or a disadvantage but we’re just going to focus on ourselves.

With no playoffs in the most recent pod season and the second round halted in 2020 Clippers captain Jack O’Brien said there isn’t much BCHL post season experience to draw from.

“We went around the room and only Donny (Sean Donaldson) has won a championship. We don’t have a lot on this team but definitely my four games back when I was 16 will help. We’re going to come together as a team and experience this for the first time together.”

CLIP NOTES:

The games in the Clippers opening round will go April 1 and 2 in Nanaimo and April 5 and 6 in Surrey. The remaining games will be played if necessary April 8, 9 and 11.

A pair of Nanaimo players were honoured by the BCHL in two award categories just before playoffs. Goalie Cooper black was named as an honourable mention for the 3 Stars of the Week and Kai Daniells was a runner up for the BCHL Player of the Month.

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