The old adage says that if you want to be the best, you have to beat the best and that’s what the Comox Valley Glacier Kings are trying to do tonight. The Peninsula Panthers are coming into tonight with a 31-5-1-0 record, which is 20 points ahead of the GKings who are 19-15-4-1. The Panthers have won 2 out of the 3 head to head meetings including a combined score of 20-3 in the last two. The defending league champions took down Westshore, Kerry Park and Campbell River in the playoffs last year to win the VIJHL title after a 33-11-3-1 regular season record in that 2024-25 season. Yes they are even better this year.

The Panthers are far and away the best offensive team in the league this season averaging 5.9 goals per game. No other team even averages 5 goals per contest. They boast 4 of the top 9 scorers and 6 of the top 13 in the VIJHL. They already have 7 players with over 40 points, the Glacier Kings don’t have any. The team from the south also has 4 players with at least 20 goals, once again the Yeti don’t have one. With that being said we have also talked a lot about the defensive system that Comox employs and it will need to be in full force this evening. Head coach/GM Curtis Toneff says it seems to be working right now, “I think for the most part. I don’t know how people are going to read into this on your blog Darryl but I’m not going to go into too much detail. To be honest with you, it’s new to me, I’ve never ran it before. I decided to go with it. I’ve been involved with it with a couple teams at a higher level, mixing a couple coaches styles. It’s been really fun for me actually to teach a different way. The one thing I like about it is it gives the players a bit more freedom to make decisions. They don’t have to be in spot A, B or C. It’s been good to see that it’s working except for those two or three shellackings that we’ve taken. It’s happened twice, maybe one other night. Our goals against per game is actually pretty good if you take those three games out, two games anyway. So for the most part it has been good and it starts with ‘compete’ and goaltending.” The Glacier Kings have only allowed 3 goals or less in regulation time in 6 of their last 7 games and that defence will be put to the test right from puck drop.

Peninsula is lead by Alex Sajan who has accumulated 16G, 36A for 52Pts in 37 games. Then there’s 6’2″ 215 pound forward Oskar Aitken-Salmons and much smaller Carson Harris leading the club with 28 goals. That’s good for a tie for 2nd place in the VIJHL with Parker Atkinson of Westshore. In net, the goaltenders split their time. Both Caden Lentz and Matus Volovar have appeared in 17 games each and both netminders have 14 wins with 2.20 and 2.34 GAA respectively.

The face of this Comox team looks very different than it did two or three months ago with a lot of moves being made. Will they pull the trigger on signing another player or two? Coach Toneff says probably not, “Unless something happens like we bring in a guy that we just can’t say no to or there’s an injury that happens we’re pretty much set here I think. That should be something that the players are aware of. This is it… there’s no more wondering or rumors or whatever is going to happen next because this is it. So now it’s up to you guys, it’s up to us.” Just since the start of this month, Comox has signed and released Luca Vanzo, released Isaac Dunsire, signed Easton Sangris, Rolan Amin and Gavin Mowat. They also traded to get Lane Maarhuis and Tee Hagel and January isn’t even over yet.

As good as Peninsula has been all season they have now lost 2 of their last 3 games and 3 of their last 6. This proves that they can be beat. Their 5 regulation losses are to Comox Valley, Westshore, Victoria and Oceanside twice. The Wolves also beat them in overtime. The Glacier Kings have looked good against them and horrible against them this year. Curtis says he’s looking for his squad to be better prepared this time around, “We’re playing against a very good team and we owe it to ourselves to have a better effort. We went and beat them and let’s face it, stunned them earlier in the year on a Sunday which was a third game in 3 days for us. Since that they came up to Comox and were more than ready and we were more than not ready. The game got away from us in a hurry. I think I was asking our assistant coach if we were playing the Panthers or the Penticton Vees because I wasn’t really sure. We made them look pretty good. At the end of the day we can still finish 2-2 against the ex-champions of the league with a simple kind of greasy road mentality. I think if we stick to 60 minutes of hockey we can give ourselves a chance to do that.” Comox Valley has been putting in 60 minute efforts as of late and having been getting points because of it. They have points in 9 of their last 11 games going 7-2-2-0.

Power Play

Peninsula: 34.8% (1st)
Comox Valley: 18.4% (6th)

Penalty Kill

Peninsula: 87.4% (1st)
Comox Valley: 81.0% (6th)
* Panthers also lead the league with 9 shorthanded goals.

The Panthers came out of the gates hard on November 1st racking up 6 goals in the first 12 minutes of the game, then scored another 6 in the first 18 minutes of the opening frame in their November 22nd battle with the Yeti. Between their impressive record and their ability to put up crooked numbers in a hurry, it can be a little intimidating. I asked the bench boss if his players might feel a little bit of that and he was quick to say no, “That’s where coaching comes in. It’s up to me to have them not read into that. We have a totally different hockey club than we did in November. We have guys that have played BCHL, we have guys that have made teams in the SJHL, we have five veteran guys that have been inserted so no I’m not going to let them read into the standings.” Comox can be confident knowing that they have beaten every team in the league at least once except for Victoria but they’ve only played the Cougars twice with the last match a 1-0 score until the empty-netter late.

So which Glacier King team will we see tonight? Hopefully the one that has been playing consistently well the past couple months. It will be a tough task to score. As much talking as I did regarding their offensive prowess, I should also mention they are by far the best defensive team in the league as well. Game time is 7:30 PM at the Panorama Recreation Centre. I’ll insert Comox Valley’s lineup on the “Gameday Lineups” page of this blog once the coach gives it to me. Go Glacier Kings!

Darryl Skender