Friday . . .

As expected, the WHL revealed Friday that Tri-City Americans LW Colton Yellow Horn is the Western Conference finalist for the player-of-the-year award. He is up against Calgary Hitmen D Karl Alzner. . . . Yellow Horn, 20, had 97 points in the regular-season, including a WHL-leading 48 goals. He also led the WHL with 20 power-play goals and enjoyed a 22-game point streak, the longest such streak this season. . . . The WHL also announced the Western Conference's nominees for its humanitarian-of-the-year (F Mitch Czibere, Vancouver Giants) and marketing and communication awards (Brian Sandy, Tri-City). . . . Recipients of all WHL individual awards will be recognized at a luncheon in Calgary's Round-Up Centre on April 30. . . . It’s official. The Kelowna Rockets and radio station AM 1150 have signed a five-year deal involving play-by-play rights to the WHL team’s games. The station has carried Rockets’ games for 10 seasons. . . .
C Levi Nelson of the Swift Current Broncos has joined the AHL’s Providence Bruins on a tryout deal. The Bruins finished with the AHL’s best regular-season record so may be in for a long playoff run. Nelson, who turns 20 on April 28, was with the Bruins a year ago, too, getting into a regular-season game and four playoff contests. He was a sixth-round pick of the Boston Bruins in the NHL’s 2006 draft. He had 61 points and 152 penalty minutes in 67 games with the Broncos this season and then picked up 15 points in 12 playoff games. . . . A note from the OHL where the Kitchener Rangers revealed Friday morning that G Steve Mason has undergone arthroscopic surgery to repair a minor tear in one knee and will be out for up to six weeks. The Rangers are the host team for the Memorial Cup tournament that starts May 16. Mason’s NHL rights belong to the Columbus Blue Jackets and Chris MacFarland, their assistant GM, has told the Columbus Dispatch that Mason, 5-0 with a .946 save percentage in the playoffs, won’t play in the Memorial Cup. Earlier, Mason was the tournament MVP as he backstopped Team Canada to a gold medal at the World Junior Championship. . . .
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On to Friday’s playoff games, both of which were decided in overtime . . .
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In Calgary, the Lethbridge Hurricanes erased a 3-1 second-period deficit as they beat the Hitmen, 4-3, in overtime. . . . Lethbridge, which has won eight straight games in Calgary, swept the first two games in Calgary and now goes home to play Games 3 and 4 on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. . . . Lethbridge F Zach Boychuk scored twice to assume the playoff goal-scoring lead with 11. His second goal, at 15:25 of the second period, cut Calgary’s lead to 3-2. . . . Boychuk has five points in this series’ first two games. . . . The Hitmen went into the game with a 43-0 record this season when leading after two periods. . . . F Adam Chorneyko, with his first playoff goal, tied it at 16:02 of the third period, with Boychuk earning the lone assist. With the goal, Chorneyko ended a 16-game drought. . . . F Austin Fyten, who was pointless in six regular-season games, notched the winner, his first playoff goal, at 2:37 of the first extra period, beating Calgary G Dan Spence from in close on the left side. . . . Fyten, a 16-year-old from Sundre, Alta., was the 27th pick in the 2006 bantam draft. He played midget AAA with the Calgary-based UFA Bisons. He was playing in his 12th career WHL game. . . . Lethbridge G Juha Metsola stopped 24 shots, while Spence turned aside 33. . . . Calgary outshot Lethbridge 24-15 through two periods but the visitors held an 18-3 edge in shots in the third period and took the only four shots of OT. . . . Lethbridge was 0-for-3 on the PP; Calgary was 1-for-4. . . . Attendance was 8,043. . . .
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In Kennewick, Wash., LW Ondrej Roman scored 49 seconds into the second overtime period to give the Spokane Chiefs a 1-0 victory over the Tri-City Americans. . . . The second game in the Western Conference final goes Sunday in Kennewick. . . . F Judd Blackwater grabbed a loose puck and sent Roman in alone to beat G Chet Pickard for his sixth goal of these playoffs. . . . "There's been a lot of hype for the series and Game 1 sure lived up to the hype," Spokane head coach Bill Peters told Jessica Brown of the Spokane Spokesman-Review. "If that's the way it's going to be, and I anticipate the whole series going this way, it's going to be a lot of fun and an entertaining series. Both teams were playing at a very high level and it was a hard-fought victory for us tonight." . . . Roman has 14 points in 11 playoff games. . . . Spokane held a 37-24 edge in shots, including 20-7 from the second period through game’s end. . . . Some of that may have been due to power plays. The Chiefs were presented with five of the game’s last six power plays; however, they finished 0-for-9. . . . Tri-City was 0-for-5, meaning the Chiefs’ penalty killers have killed of 25 of 26 opposition PPs in six road playoff games. . . . Pickard stopped 36 shots; Spokane’s Dustin Tokarski made 24 saves. . . . Attendance was 5,298. . . . Spokane suffered a major loss early in the second period when D Jared Cowen was hit with an elbowing major and the accompanying game misconduct. That penalty will be reviewed by the WHL office before Game 2. . . . Tri-City LW Colton Yellow Horn had a nine-game playoff point streak stopped. . . . The Americans are in the conference final for the first time since being swept from a best-of-seven final by the Kamloops Blazers in 1999. . . . Tri-City has given up 19 goals in 10 playoffs games, with seven of those coming in one game. . . . The Chiefs are in the conference final for the first time since a five-game loss to the Portland Winter Hawks in 2001.