Outplayed.

"They came in and were more determined than we were," said Tri-City coach Jim Hiller, whose team had played four games in six nights. "Their feet were faster than ours and it was hard to make plays. Generally, it's the other way around."

"I thought when we pushed back that's when we got better," (Kelowna coach) Huska said. "If you allow them to skate like they can, you are in for a long night."

"We knew Kelowna would come in tough," Ashton said. "They came out strong. As a group we had to match that and at times we did. Four in six is no excuse. It was frustrating to hand the goals to them. We outplayed ourselves." (Herald)

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"The second half of the season, obviously things tighten up," said Ashton, who scored twice to give him six in six games with Tri-City since arriving from Regina in a trade. "Playing in these tight games, it comes down to guys learning to play in these one-goal games in playoff time, just sticking to the little things, playing the full 60 minutes.

"We've had some easy games lately, and we've got to learn to play in these tight games. We need to learn that in tight games, we need to stick to our systems. They scored a couple of goals tonight because of system breakdowns. We have to learn from that, correct our mistakes."

"When you come in expecting to go to Burger Ranch every time, it's not necessarily going to happen," Hiller said, referring to the team's five-goal promotion which it had met in its last nine home games. "You never want to have this type of game, but it's human nature, when you get on a roll, things come easy, and your focus wanes a bit.

"No question, but it isn't the reason why we didn't play as well as we needed to," Hiller said. "It's a valid point, but Kelowna was playing its third game in three nights, so when you look at what they had going on, we had it easy." (Examiner)