The bad news is the Langley Rivermen lost.
The good news is at least they got a single point for their efforts.
“To get out of there — on their home opener — with a point, we will take it and run,” said head coach Bobby Henderson.
His junior A hockey club was at the South Surrey Arena on Friday (Sept. 13) where they faced the Surrey Eagles.
The Rivermen rallied from a 4-1 deficit before falling 5-4 in double overtime.
Darien Craighead had opened the scoring before Surrey responded with three goals — including a pair 30 seconds apart — for a 3-1 lead after one.
“It was basically three goals on three shots and that is hard to recover from,” Henderson said.
And after Surrey went up 4-1, Langley began the comeback with a penalty shot goal from Will Cook to cut the lead to 4-2 after 40 minutes.
Langley scored the only two goals of the third period, a power-play tally from Chris Forney early in the period, and then Nathan Craft forcing overtime with 19 seconds to play.
And after neither team scored during four-on-four overtime, Jonah Renouf ended it at 3:08 of the three-on-three double overtime period.
Langley lost despite a 52-24 advantage in shots on goal.
“That was a tough thing to recover from,” Henderson said of the three-goal deficit. “But they put themselves in position to win (and) a point is a point and we will take it.”
He said he was impressed by the team’s resiliency and knack for scoring timely goals.
The Rivermen will play their home opener on Friday (Sept. 20) when they welcome the Coquitlam Express to the Langley Events Centre.
Game time is 7:15 p.m.
It is the lone home game this month for the Rivermen.