The inaugural season for the new bantam tier 1 hockey team in the Yukon ending in a trip to the BC Hockey provincial championships in Nanaimo, B.C for the Rivermen squad.

The young team was in tough from the beginning taking on the Seafair Islanders – a top-ranked team throughout the season.

The Islanders opened the scoring 36 seconds into the game and kept the pressure on, leading 3-0 after the first period.

The Rivermen added two goals in the second from Landon Marsh and Layton Feist, but the Islanders continued to outshoot the Yukon team and lead 8-2 after the second.

The Islanders would add five more in the final period to win 13-2 and outshoot the Rivermen 46-17 in the game.

Seafair went on to win the provincial crown with a 3-0 win over Prince George in the final.

The Prince George squad happened to be the next opponent for the Rivermen following their loss to Seafair.

Meeting the Prince George Cougars for the first time this season, the Rivermen were again in tough early with the Cougars scoring just two minutes into the game.

Down 2-0, the Yukon team cut the lead in half on a power-play goal by Ashton Underhill.

With Prince George leading 4-1 after two, they would add three more with less than five to go in the game to win 7-1.

The back-to-back losses eliminated the Rivermen from playoff contention in the eight-team tournament, but they still had one more game against the Victoria Racquet Club Kings.

In their final game of the season, the Rivermen opened the scoring in the first period on a goal by Joshua Schenk for their first lead of the tournament.

The Kings battled back in the second with an early power-play goal and a second goal toward the end of the period to take a 2-1 lead.

Just over halfway into the third, Schenk would add his second of the game to tie the game at two and that is how it ended.

It was a very chippy penalty-filled affair with the Rivermen tallying 36 penalty minutes on 14 infractions to the Kings’ 16 minutes on eight calls.

With the top two teams advancing in each four-team division, the Rivermen finished fourth in their pool with one point.

But the two division leaders, Prince George and Seafair ended up meeting in the final with Seafair coming away with the 3-0 victory.

It was a busy season for the new Rivermen squad in the BC Hockey regional zone program.

They played a total of 22 regular season games – 15 of which were in Whitehorse.

The team finished with a record of four wins, 13 losses, and five ties.

In the seven-team zone program, teams played a differing amount of games and didn’t include playoffs following the regular season.

Instead the focus was on qualifying for the BC Hockey Championships, and being the sole team from the Yukon zone, the Rivermen automatically booked their ticket.

The zone program is looking to expand further for the 2018-19 season focusing on district participation with areas such as Yukon, West Kootenay and Lower Mainland, to try and include all regions of BC Hockey.

Preparation for the upcoming season is already underway, with spring evaluation camps announced for the zones.

The Yukon team will be holding an evaluation camp May 11-13 in Whitehorse looking ahead to their second season on the ice.