PJHL Media
Let no one say the Ridge Meadows Flames didn’t go down fighting.
The PJHL champs gave it their all in the Mowat Cup, going down by a 9-6 score in Game 4 of the best-of-five series to the KIJHL champion Grand Forks Border Bruins.
The series was set up to feature Games 1 and 2 on the Flames home ice before going to the Interior, but Ridge Meadows had to use Langley’s George Preston Recreation Centre as opposed to the familiar confines of Cam Neely Arena. Playing out of a PJHL rival’s rink may have been unsettling for the Flames, but Grand Forks is due full credit for taking the first two games as the travelling team.
A pair of power-play goals by the Border Bruins were the difference in Game 1, as they opened the scoring on the man advantage in the first and tied it 2-2 late in the second again with the Flames a man short. The Border Bruins controlled the third period, outshooting Ridge Meadows 13-4 in the frame and 38-21 for the game, getting the game-winner with just over seven minutes remaining.
In Game 2, the Flames held a 3-2 lead in the third on a Zack Lagrange goal but Grand Forks reeled off three tallies, including two in the final minute, including a power-play goal for the winner, to take it 5-3 and head home up 2-0 in the series.
The trend of the road team winning held in Game 3 with the Flames getting two goals from Lukas Ravenstein to claim a 5-4 victory. After a scoreless first, Ravenstein broke the seal early in the second and was followed 12 seconds later by Cohen Muc before Grand Forks potted three straight to take a one-goal lead to the third. Jacob Roche drew the Flames even again in the third and then Lagrange and the Border Bruins’ Tyler Burke traded power-play tallies which made it 4-4 in the late going when Ravenstein got his second of the night to win it.
Game 4 was a wild one, with Grand Forks going up 3-0 only to see Ridge Meadows come back to tie it early in the third on two goals from Lagrange. Now playing in front of an enthusiastic home crowd in Grand Forks, the Border Bruins ripped off five-straight tallies, started off by Burke, to take an 8-3 lead. Nolan Bowsher and Joshua Bettesworth got a couple back for the Flames and the teams traded late tallies for a combined 15 goals in the 9-6 final.
Burke was phenomenal for the Border Bruins in the Mowat Cup, going for 7-4-11 in the four games while linemate Levi Astill posted 4-6-10. Lagrange, the PJHL scoring champ, had four goals and seven points in while Bowsher had a pair of tallies and five points.
It was not the desired ending for the Flames, who can still look back at a phenomenal season that saw them go 42-4-1-1 and repeat as PJHL champs. The Mowat Cup, which was revived last year, has now been claimed by a KIJHL side both times at the Flames expense after the Revelstoke Grizzlies won it in 2024.
Saluting the graduating players, this was the final Junior hockey in the careers of Nolan Bowsher, Jakob Loewen, Lukas Ravenstein, Theo Kochan, Aidan Wildeman, Matthew Wise, Justin Summers and Pierce Whyte.
