Vees Battle Back for OT Victory over Cougars
Published on January 1, 2026 under Western Hockey League (WHL)
Penticton Vees News Release
Penticton Vees celebrate their overtime victory
(Penticton Vees, Credit: Cherie Morgan)
Penticton, BC - The Penticton Vees battled back from three separate deficits on Thursday at the South Okanagan Events Centre defeating the Prince George Cougars 6-5 in overtime.
The Vees climb to 19-9-4-3 on the season and sit in third in the West, just three points back of the Cougars for first in the BC Division.
The Cougars opened the scoring at 1:46 of the first period on a shot from Townes Kozicky that beat AJ Reyelts on the blocker side to make it 1-0.
That would be all the scoring in a back-and-forth first period.
The Vees evened it up quickly in the second with Brittan Alstead scoring on a wraparound for his 14th of the season just one minute in.
Penticton took their first lead of the night at 6:50 of the second frame with Chase Valliant grabbing a loose puck and ripping it to the blocker side for his second in as many games and fifth of the season. The Cougars would counter with two of their own. First, it was Brock Souch shorthanded and then Kooper Gizowski made it 3-2 Prince George at 14:22. Jiri Kamas ripped home his second of the season from the high-slot but then Prince George re-gained the lead with just 52 seconds left in the period on the powerplay to make the score 4-3 Cougars heading into the third period.
The Vees smothered the Cougars early in the third but couldn't find the equalizer. It would be Prince George that found the back of the net off the stick of Shaun Rios to make it 5-3.
Boomer Demars got a bump up shift with Jacob Kvasnicka and Ryden Evers and gathered a loose puck in the slot and fired home his fourth of the year to make it 4-3.
Then, Nolan Stevenson rifled a shot from the blueline with 1:31 remaining and the goaltender pulled to make the score 5-5 and send the game to overtime.
It didn't take long for Ethan Weber to put the game to bed as he drove the outside and tucked a shot up and under the bar to give the Vees the 6-5 overtime victory just 26 seconds into the extra frame.
The Vees outshot the Cougars 24-2 in the third period to help mount the comeback.
GAME STATS
Shots:
Vees- 45
Cougars- 21
Scoring:
Vees- Brittan Alstead, Chase Valliant, Jiri Kamas, Boomer DeMars, Nolan Stevenson, Ethan Weber
Cougars- Townes Kozicki, Brock Souch, Kooper Gizowski, Dimitri Yakutsenak, Shaun Rios
Power Plays:
Vees- 0/1
Cougars- 1/3
Goaltending:
Vees- AJ Reyelts - 16/21
Cougars- Alexander Levshyn - 39/45
Up Next: The Vees are on the road against the Spokane Chiefs on Saturday at 6:00PM
Images from this story
 Penticton Vees celebrate their overtime victory (Cherie Morgan) |
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