Not surprisingly, experience trumped youth in a pair of pre-season junior A hockey tilts over the weekend between the 91Ô´´ 91Ô´´ and the Surrey Eagles.
The two BCHL rivals squared off on Friday and Saturday to kick off the exhibition slate.
The first night saw the 91Ô´´ ice a very young and inexperienced squad — with just one returning player — against a veteran Eagles team.
Surrey skated to the 5-0 victory at the South Surrey Arena.
And the roles were reversed on Saturday at the 91Ô´´ Sportsplex as it was the 91Ô´´'s turn to play their veterans against the inexperienced Eagles, winning by an 8-3 score.
And 14 seconds in, Mario Puskarich opened the scoring for 91Ô´´. After Surrey tied things up, Scott Moyer notched a pair to give the 91Ô´´ a 3-1 lead after 20 minutes.
The first goal came on a pretty give-and-go with Derek Stuliffe while the latter was on a beautiful cross-ice pass from Victor Dombrovskiy.
The second period was more of the same.
Sutliffe made it 4-1 taking a sweet behind the net feed from Trevor Cope and Mitch McLain made it 5-1 with a power-play tally, showing great drive and determination to grab a loose rebound at the side of the net and stuffing in a wrap-around goal.
Jakob Reichert then tacked onto the lead, banking a shot off the Surrey goaltender from behind the net.
The third period saw the 91Ô´´ change goalies from James Barr to newcomer Matt Rud.
And the 16-year-old was solid in his debut, allowing two Surrey goals.
Offensively, the 91Ô´´ did not miss a beat, with McLain notching his second on a two-on-one break and Moyer completing his hat trick on a pin-point shot in the slot after some nifty passing from Sutliffe and Aaron Dolby.