SURREY - The Surrey Eagles headed overseas for a three-day tour of Vancouver Island only to find themselves at the mercy of stormy winter weather.

Surrey was tripped up 3-2 in overtime to the Nanaimo Clippers Friday night before bouncing back to forge a 6-3 win over the Alberni Valley Bulldogs in B.C. Hockey League action Saturday. The Eagles were still in their hotel early Sunday morning when they learned the Cowichan Valley Capitals were trapped in Powell River. thanks to a winter storm that forced B.C. Ferries to leave its ships in their home ports.

"We got the call Sunday morning that Cowichan was stuck in Powell River and then the whole day went crazy," said Eagles coach Matt Erhart. "At first, our game was postponed and then it was cancelled, but by then, we were in scramble mode ourselves trying to get back to Surrey. The ferries weren't running so basically we hung out and waited to see what would happen. Luckily there was a late ferry and we caught that and got home early Monday morning."

The cancellation, coupled with an earlier cancellation in Port Alberni due to bad weather, leaves the Eagles with two games to make up before the end of the season. Time is running out, however, with only six weeks left to play before the start of the playoffs in March.

"Looking at the schedule there's a chance we'll be able to make up both of those games in one weekend coming up (Feb. 17-19). We are making up the game with Alberni on the Saturday and both Cowichan and us have the Sunday off. I still have to talk about it with Cowichan but that looks like a logical time to piggyback the make-up game in on that road trip. It'll be another three-game weekend but hey, that's what it was supposed to be in the first place."

On the ice, Erhart is happy with the way his team is playing. Surrey collected three of a possible four points last weekend and have now move into a tie with Cowichan for second place in the BCHL's Coastal Conference, although Surrey has two games in hand on Capitals. The Eagles trail division-leading Powell River by two points but have played three fewer games than the Kings.

Erhart added that he noticed the busy travel schedule had adverse effects on his team at times in the past two weeks, we is impressed with the way the players have responded to the strain.

"I think we show some signs of fatigue at certain points in each game," he said. "We were playing back-to-back weekends of three games in three nights on the road and that can take a lot of you. At the same time, we went 3-0-2 in the games we were able to play and we'll take that. We were fortunate enough to have different players step up each night to give us the scoring we needed and our goaltender came up big for us both nights."

In Port Alberni Saturday, the Eagles relied on solid goaltending from Andrew Hunt to weather an early surge by the host Bulldogs. After killing off an Alberni power play, the Eagles scored three unanswered goals to take a 3-0 into the first intermission. With a safe cushion established on the scoreboard, the Eagles were content to exchange goals with the Bulldogs the rest of the night and head out of town with two points in their pockets.

Hunt stopped 51 shots to earn first star honours in the game. Brett Mulcahy, Alex Hagen, Sean McGovern, Robert Lindores, Brandon Morley and Trevor Hamilton provided the goals for Surrey.

The Eagles opened the weekend in Nanaimo where the host Clippers overcame strong Surrey special team play to record a 3-2 win in overtime. Tyler Morley scored shorthanded and Hagen netted a power-play goal to help Surrey battle back from behind and force overtime. Nanaimo out-shot Surrey 39-21 in the contest.

The Eagles will be staying away from ferry terminals this week as Trail visits Friday night (7 p.m. start) and Victoria comes to South Surrey Arena Sunday (4 p.m. start).