Prince George Cougars head coach Richard Matvichuk (far right) with members of the Cougars Fan Club, GM Todd Harkins (far left) and Fan Favourite Award winner Jesse Gabrielle at Sunday’s annual awards banquet – photo 250News

Prince George, B.C. – Richard Matvichuk has reflected on his first regular season as head coach of the Prince George Cougars.

He was hired to great fanfare last spring and calls his team’s first place finish in the B.C. Division this year “another step” towards the club’s “ultimate goal.”

“When I got here the goal was to get this team into the playoffs and go from there. And then we won a division title. So, now it’s gearing up for round one. You know the banner is always nice but we’re in this thing for the big picture and that’s what we’re looking at.”

Just what are Matvichuk’s expectations going into the playoffs?

“We’re going to take it one game at a time. Obviously, we want to win as much as we can and we want to go as far as we can. Everybody would be crazy to say we don’t want to win a championship.”

And with the team sporting a 5-2-0-1 since March 1 he says the team is close to firing on all cylinders heading into the post-season.

“Yeah, we’re close to where we want to be. Now we’ll have all week to kind of tune things up.”

Matvichuk adds he isn’t too concerned playing a U.S. opponent and all the travel it will entail in round one either.

“We’re still waiting to hear from the league on what the schedule is going to be but we’re used to travelling,” he says. “Traveling like that is going to be to our advantage. Nobody puts on the miles like we do.”