Only one team will miss the B.C. Hockey League playoffs this season under the playoff format that the league announced last week.
The BCHL Board of Governors voted to keep the three-division alignment this season, eliminate the first-round bye in the Interior Division playoffs, and have 16 of 17 teams make the postseason.
The top four teams from both the Island and Mainland divisions will qualify for the playoffs and will be seeded No. 1 to No. 4.
The top six of seven teams in the Interior Division will qualify directly to the playoffs.
The last-place team from each of the three divisions — fifth in the Island and Mainland divisions and seventh in the Interior — will be eligible to compete in the Interior Division playoffs as the No. 7 or No. 8 seed in the first round. The top two of the three last-place teams, determined by regular-season points total, will go into the Interior Division for the first round.
The winners of the Island and Mainland division playoffs will meet, and the winner of that series will take on the winner of the Interior Division in the Fred Page Cup finals.
All playoff rounds will be a best-of-seven format.
Cowichan Valley Capitals head coach Brian Passmore likes the set-up.
“It creates a bit of a race for the bottom five or six teams,” he said. “And the top teams are still vying for home-ice advantage.”
With one win, eight losses and one overtime defeat so far, the Caps currently have the worst record in the Island Division and the entire BCHL, but it is still early in the season, and there is a chance to recover from their rocky start.
“It creates something where if you run into injury trouble, or something like we have, you’re not out of the race,” Passmore said.
kevin.rothbauer@cowichanvalleycitizen.com
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