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The Grande Prairie Athletics pose with the Campbell Cup following their 3-2 overtime win in Game 6 of the NPHL Final
NPHL Final

Athletics win Campbell Cup

Mar 22, 2019 | 7:09 AM

The Grande Prairie Athletics are the 2018-2019 Campbell Cup champions.

Grande Prairie secured their 2nd league title Thursday night at the Coca-Cola Centre in thrilling fashion with a 3-2 overtime win in Game 6 of the championship series against the Dawson Creek Canucks.

The home side came out flying in the opening 20 minutes as the Athletics opened the scoring just 47 seconds into the first period as Alex Curran received a pass from Dennis Rix and made no mistake to make it 1-0 GP.

The Athletics would double their lead later in the frame when Dennis Rix banged home a loose puck which took a funny bounce off the end glass and back towards the front of the net.

Dawson Creek would bounce back though in the middle frame as they netted a pair of power play goals back to back in the span of the first five minutes of the period to even the game at 2.

The Canucks continued to press in the middle stanza, but A’s goaltender Kiefer Smiley came up huge for the home side to keep the game even.

The 3rd period was a goaltender’s duel between Kiefer Smiley and Kenton White as both went back and forth making big save after big save.

Neither team could find the back of the net in the 3rd period and for the first time in the league final the two teams needed overtime to decide a winner.

Both the Canucks and Athletics continued to go up and down the ice trading chances until Mackenzie Caron ended the game 13:41 into overtime as he came in over the blue line and sniped one off the post and in past Kiefer White to clinch the Campbell Cup for the Grande Prairie Athletics.

The Athletics claimed the NPHL Final in 6 games with the 3-2 overtime win Thursday night which is the teams 2nd title in team history.

Grande Prairie finished the post-season 8-1 at the Coca-Cola Centre.

Kiefer Smiley of the Athletics was named Playoff MVP.