The Portland Winterhawks suffered their first defeat of this Western Hockey League playoff season, falling at Prince George 5-0 in Game 1 of the Western Conference Championship on Friday.
The Winterhawks, the No. 2 West seed, was 8-0 coming into this best-of-seven series.
It was also just the third time this season the Winterhawks have been shut out. The last time was Feb. 18 at Everett, and the other was Dec. 3 against Prince George at Portland.
Cougars goalie Joshua Ravensbergen stopped all 33 shots by the Winterhawks for his second shut out of the playoffs and eighth of the season.
The Cougars, the top seed, had five different goal scorers including a goal and assist from Los Angeles Kings prospect Koehn Ziemmer.
