Hartley’s Sports Shorts; Wednesday, March 19th

Sports by Hartley Wednesday, March 19th, 2025

(As of 12:05 a.m. All times listed are PST)

WHL:

Victoria Royals  5  Kamloops Blazers  3

The game summary is here.

The Prince George Cougars host Victoria to close out their regular season Friday and Saturday.

The (40-20-4-2) Cougars and the (38-17-3-7) Royals are tied for the BC Division lead but Victoria has a game in hand which they makeup tonight (Wednesday) in Kelowna against the (17-42-4-2) Rockets.

Prince George has won nine of its last 10 games and have the fewest home regulation losses in the WHL (with a 23-4-3-2 record at CN Centre).

The Cougars start the playoffs at home on Friday, March 28th and Saturday, March 29th against either Portland, Vancouver or Tri-City.

Playoff tickets go on sale this afternoon (Wednesday) at 2:00.

It’s officially whiteout season at the CN Centre!

The @PGCougars‘ home-ice advantage starts on Friday, March 28.

📝 | https://t.co/JmUxU1Wu4W
🎟️ | https://t.co/UUqeWom6l3 pic.twitter.com/fuxjZwZ8HW

— Western Hockey League (@TheWHL) March 18, 2025

The WHL Conference standings are here.

BC Elite Hockey League:

The BC Elite Hockey League best-of-3 finals will be played this weekend.

The Under-18 Cariboo Cougars host the Okanagan Rockets at Kin 1 Friday night at 7:45, Saturday night at 4:45 and if needed Sunday morning at 10:45.

The winner goes to Alberta for the Pacific playdowns April 4th-6th.

In the Female division, the U-18 Northern Capitals visit the Greater Vancouver Comets in Coquitlam Friday night at 5:00, Saturday night at 5:45 and if needed Sunday afternoon at 1:00.

The BC Elite Hockey League playoff results can be found here or here.

The BC Elite Hockey League playoff schedule can be found here 

The final BC Elite Hockey League regular season standings are here.

NHL: (9 Tuesday games with Toronto the only Canadian team idle)

Vancouver  6  Winnipeg  2  

The game summary is here.

The (32-25-11) Canucks, with just 14 games left, start a 6-game road trip Thursday (4:30) at St. Louis.

Vancouver is tied with the (34-28-7) St. Louis Blues for the 2nd and final wild-card spot in the Western Conference, two points ahead of the  (31-25-11) Calgary Flames.

Calgary  2  NY Rangers  1
Edmonton  7  Utah  1
Montreal  6  Ottawa  3

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Alex Ovechkin picked up an assist in the Washington Capitals 4-1 victory over the Detroit Red Wings.

The 39-year-old Ovechkin remains 8 goals away from breaking Wayne Gretzky’s NHL career record of 894.

The (45-15-8) Caps have 14 regular season games left.

The NHL schedule and results are here or here.