It was pure dominance from the Prince George Cougars, clobbering the Victoria Royals by an 11-2 score in their first road game of the regular season at the Save on Foods Memorial Centre in Victoria.
Terik Parascak started the scoring frenzy, netting a short-handed goal at 3:10, followed by a power-play goal at 4:22, giving the Cougars an early 2-0 lead. Not to be outdone, at 10:59, Tyson Buczkowski fired a wrist shot from the left point, weaving it through traffic to further extend the Cougar lead. And just under five minutes later, on another power-play opportunity, Terik Parascak exhibited his skill with a sublime play, feeding the puck to Riley Heidt, who found the back of the net, marking his first goal of the season and bringing the score to 4-0 in favour of PG.
Victoria managed to get one goal back from Tanner Scott at 16:08, narrowing the gap to 4-1.
In the second period, the Cougars continued to dominate, adding three more goals in just over three minutes. Hudson Thornton, the newly appointed captain, wasted no time, firing a shot past goaltender Braden Holt just 42 seconds into the period, making it 5-1. Shortly after, Zac Funk mesmerized the fans with a dazzling display of skill, maneuvering around two Victoria defenders before slotting the puck into the net at 1:33, extending the lead to 6-1. At 3:07, Terik Parascak completed his first career WHL hat-trick, cementing the Cougar lead at 7-1.
At 5:28 of the third, Ondrej Becher displayed incredible speed and skill, scoring a short-handed breakaway goal, further solidifying the Cougars’ lead. Riley Heidt added to the tally at 8:45 with a power-play goal, to add to the PG lead. Victoria managed to pull one back on the man advantage with Nate Misskey’s goal at 10:30, but the Cougars responded with an exclamation mark. Terik Parascak netted his fourth goal of the night at 10:43, capping off an exceptional performance. Hunter Laing added his name to the score sheet with his first WHL goal at 11:29, sealing the victory.