The Vancouver Giants came within a hair of beating the Portland Winterhawks for the first time since February 2012, but settled for a single point in a 5–4 shootout loss on Sunday night. It was a hollow victory for the Giants, who led 4–3 late in the third period but gave up a shorthanded goal to take the game into extra time.
Taylor Leier nearly won the game for the Portland Winterhawks with under a minute left in regulation when he chipped a bouncing puck off the crossbar behind Payton Lee. Photo by Jason Kurylo for Pucked in the Head.
Vancouver held the edge in the first period, punishing a tired Winterhawks team playing their third game in three nights. After 20 minutes, the G-Men led 3–2 and looked in pretty good shape.
As the night wore on, however, Portland’s snipers seemed to gain their legs. Leading scorer Nicolas Petan started cutting in and out of traffic, giving nifty short passes to linemates and trailing defenders alike. The also dangerous Oliver Bjorkstrand dominated on the boards, making Vancouver goaltender look over his shoulder several times in the third period. And in the final ten minutes, Portland generated a seemingly endless string of breakaways and odd-man rushes.
More, including pics and highlights, after the jump.
The Vancouver Giants are #7 in the West. The Portland Winterhawks sit in second place. So fire up the what if cannon and get ready for a playoff preview as these two teams face off at the Coliseum at 5pm tonight. Surprisingly, tonight marks the first time these two teams have squared off this season. Vancouver will no doubt be champing at the bit for this one, as the Hawks decimated the Giants by a combined score of 24–11 over their four games last year.
Oliver Bjorkstrand has 60 points in 41 games thus far this season, second best on the Winterhawks and fifth in the WHL. Photo by Jason Kurylo for Pucked in the Head.
After splitting games in Victoria this weekend, the Winterhawks have just four wins in their last ten games — they were demoralized by back-to-back 7–2 losses to the Kelowna Rockets over the holidays. That said, in Nicolas Petan and Oliver Bjorkstrand, they’ve got two of the top five scorers in the WHL, and are daaaaaaangerous when they get the engine running. Despite the recent slide, they’re tops in the US division, and fifth overall in the WHL.
It was a rough night for the ol’ save percentage, but Jared Rathjen skated away with his 11th win of the season at the Pacific Coliseum. His Vancouver Giants scored early and scored often on Friday night, but they needed to hang on tight for their 6–5 win over the Prince George Cougars.
Jared Rathjen made 22 saves as the Vancouver Giants beat the Prince George Cougars 6–5 on 10 January 2014. Photo by Jason Kurylo for Pucked in the Head.
It was the kind of game that drives both coaches nuts. Tim Traber opened the scoring for the home side 49 seconds into the game on a rebound in the blue paint, but then Rathjen let in two goals on the glove side just 18 seconds apart to give the lead to the Cougars. A buck seven later, the Giants had scored twice more, taking back the lead themselves. Less than eight minutes into the first period, it was 3–2 Giants. They would add another pair of goals to walk out of the first period with a 5–2 lead.
It’s a cakewalk at this point, right? Twenty minutes in against the ninth-place Cougars, up 18–8 in shots and 5–2 in goals, Vancouver should tip this bad boy out the door, no problem.
The Whitecaps’ offseason of upheaval continues amid reports the club’s MVP, Camilo, is leaving for greener pastures and paycheques in Mexico. The only problem is, according to the Whitecaps, this isn’t even a possibility considering the Brazilian is still under contract with the team through 2014.
Vancouver Whitecaps FC forward Camilo is the ultimate love-him-or-hate-him kind of player. Whichever side of the fence you’re on, you can’t deny the game is more interesting with him on the pitch. Photo by Jason Kurylo for Pucked in the head.
Adolfo Rios, chairman of Querétaro FC, contradicted this assertion on January 2nd, telling a website that Camilo’s reps at FootballBrazil had informed him the reigning MLS Golden Boot winner was a free agent.
Day one of the 2014 Great Northwest Showcase saw the UBC Thunderbirds earn a dramatic come-from-behind win over the seven-time NCAA Division 1 champions from the U of North Datoka. The Team Formerly Known as the Fighting Sioux, which features a dozen NHL draft picks, including World Junior Gold Medalist Rocco Grimaldi, is the first NCAA varsity team to play in BC since 1999*.
Zane Gothberg made 22 saves for the University of North Dakota, but it wasn’t enough. The UBC Thunderbirds tied the game with 52 seconds left in regulation, then salted it away in overtime at Bill Copeland Arena. Photo by Jason Kurylo for Pucked in the Head.
The game offered up solid goaltending at both ends of the ice. Sophomore Zane Gothberg, a 2010 draft pick of the Boston Bruins, made 22 saves on 25 shots for UND, while keepers Matt Hewitt and Steven Stanford teamed up to make 26 saves for UBC.
The Vancouver Giants put a stop to the best team in the CHL on Friday night, beating the Kelowna Rockets 4–2 at the Pacific Coliseum. The Rockets entered the night on a remarkable 16-game win streak, which most recently included back-to-back 7–2 spankings of the powerhouse Portland Winterhawks — in Portland.
Forward Jackson Houck scored three times to help his team to a 4–2 win over the visiting Kelowna Rockets. Photo by Jason Kurylo for Pucked in the Head.
Jackson Houck and Jared Rathjen continued strong play for the Giants, the former netting a hat trick and the latter stopping 24 of 26 shots against the explosive Kelowna attack. Anthony Ast had the other goal for the Giants in his first game back out of the walking boot he wore last week to protect a bruised bone in his ankle. Cain Franson and defenseman Arvin Atwal each had two assists in the win.
Jackson Whistle, who played 21 games for the Giants in 2011–12, lost to his former team for the first time. Whistle won all four games against Vancouver last year, but allowed four goals on 26 shots to earn the L this night.
Houck now has a team-high 22 goals on the season, tying him for ninth among WHL goal scorers. Despite playing 31 fewer games thus far, he is just one shy of his total for last season, his career best for goals scored. He will look to tally number 23 against these same Rockets in Kelowna on Saturday in the second half of this back-to-back series.
Cole Linaker had an assist, but it wasn’t enough to stretch the Kelowna Rockets win streak to 17 games. The Vancouver Giants gave Kelowna their first loss since November 20. Photo by Jason Kurylo for Pucked in the Head.
Camilo scored the MLS goal of the year on a spectacular side scissor kick on October 9, 2013. Now rumours swirl of his impending exit from Vancouver Whitecaps FC. Photo by Jason Kurylo for Pucked in the Head.
Ugh. I typed that headline five seconds ago and now I hate myself. NO. The answer is no. Probably no. Ok, the answer might be no, and I would almost certainly say definitely no if we hadn’t been burned before by the Whitecaps. There. You will find no buried ledes here.
As one would expect concerning the MLS Golden Boot winner, rumours have been swirling recently regarding the impending transfer of Camilo Sanvezzo to various locales. Look, up in the sky, it’s a transfer offer from Rosenborg, it’s a transfer offer from Tigres… NO! IT’S A TRANSFER OFFER FROM QUERÉTARO! Continue reading Is O Magico’s next act a disappearing one?→
At the beginning of the season, a lot of WHL players look at the calendar to see where the three-in-threes are. John Tortorella might wax poetic about his Canucks being a tired team after five games in nine nights, but when was the last time an NHLer hit the ice on three consecutive nights?
Thomas Foster scored once and added an assist as his Vancouver Giants beat the Prince George Cougars 5–2. Photo by Jason Kurylo for Pucked in the Head.
The Vancouver Giants ended 2013 with a threefer, taking four of a possible six points despite travelling on the bus between each game. Sunday was the final game of the calendar year for the G-Men, and they made it count with a 5–2 win over the visiting Prince George Cougars. Jared Rathjen made 27 stops for his eighth win of the season, while both Carter Popoff and Thomas Foster had a goal and an assist at the other end of the rink.
It’s a game they should have won, but on that third night in a row, you never know which of the legs or the heart will show up. Sometimes you get both. Sometimes you get neither.
With the win, the Giants go into 2014 at five games over .500 and sit seventh place in the Western Conference. Their 45 points are one more than they had all last year, when they finished in the league basement. Making it all the more remarkable is the fact that the Giants started this year with a dismal 1–9 stretch to start the season. Since then, they’ve played solid two-way hockey, and gone 18–5–7.
We’ve heard a lot about Seattle’s sports culture over the past few years. Sounders supporters have baffled visiting MLS teams with their size and vocal nature, helping the squad make the playoffs in each of their first five seasons. The Seahawks “12th Man” mystique has grown as they’ve put together their best season ever, setting and then resetting the Guinness World Record for loudest public stadium in history.
Seattle goaltender Danny Mumaugh (@dannymumaugh) plays with the benefit of 4,000 screaming fans behind him nearly every night. Photo by Jason Kurylo for Pucked in the Head.
Noise came as little surprise, then, when I hit up ShoWare Center for a Thunderbirds game against their cross-town rivals the Everett Silvertips. More than five thousand fans of both teams came out for the last weekend of 2013 for the second half of a home-and-home series. The building has a capacity of just over six grand, so 5K in the house meant ShoWare was one rockin’ barn for this tilt. It was an absolute treat to be a part of it — fans of the two teams playfully (if not particularly imaginatively) taunted each other all game, and screamed, gasped and bit their nails in all the right places.
Sure, Thunderbirds fans complain about the Everett cowbells, but deep down they love it. I mean, deep, deep down. Keep looking. It’s in there someplace.
Fans of the Seattle Thunderbirds and Everett Silvertips were loud, passionate, and dare I say it, FUN. Photo by Jason Kurylo for Pucked in the Head.
You’re just a few shopping days away from the big Noël, and you’ve still got a few unchecked boxes on the naughty and nice list. Maybe one or two of those stockings belong to sports fans. Here’s just one idea for how to fill that bit of footwear that hangs on the mantle.
The Lonely End of the Rink: Confessions of a Reluctant Goalie
by Grant Lawrence $26.96 list price
$16.89 on Amazon.ca
Lonely End of the Rink is an autobiographical tale of how Grant Lawrence went from being a pre-teen King of the Nerds to a forty-something Kingpin of Beer League Rock ‘n’ Rollers.
Lawrence, ex-lead singer of The Smugglers and current King of the CBC 3, sketches out his childhood in terms of horrific geekdom, replete with knee braces, massive glasses, teeny tiny limbs and bad hair. There are Simpsons-esque episodes with fellow dweebs, beatings from bullies that would make Saruman the White proud, and verbal abuse from Seinfeldian gym teachers, who give him a lifelong hatred of being called by just his family name.
Grant Lawrence, shares his transition from King of the Nerds to King of in the Beer League Rock n Rollers in The Lonely End of the Rink.
That reminds me: in this here tome, thar be pop culture references out the wazoo. Lawrence Grant writes the way hipster radio presenters talk — not that there’s anything wrong with that. He sprinkles metaphors and similes on the page like Emeril hopped up on too much essence. On a single two-age spread (pp 76–77 if you’re interested), he references Harry Hamlin (BAM!), Clash of the Titans (BAM!), the Spartans laying waste to Arcadia (BAM!), Richard Brodeur, the Scream Machine roller coaster, Gollum, zombies, Popeye, and a gym teacher named only The Fire Hydrant (BAM! BAM! BAM!). Chapter headings — and the book’s title, for that matter — are all nods to hockey rock influences, from Alan Thicke to the Tragically Hip, from Dave Bidini & the Rheostatics to the aforementioned Jill Barber & her equally talented brother Matthew.
We get a few anecdotes from Grant’s time as the lead singer of the Vancouver-based Smugglers, but large doses of talk about the Flying Vees, a collection of musicians, artists and other creative types who dabble in rec league hockey wearing — you guessed it — Gibson Flying V guitars on their blue, green and white jerseys.
Grant Lawrence won’t win the Giller Prize anytime soon, but his conversational tone makes The Lonely End of the Rink a fast, entertaining read. Hockey plays the on-again, off-again romantic lead in the piece, even though we know our hero eventually settles down with sublime songstress Jill Barber. If you’ve even once heard a Top 10 list on CBC 3, you can’t help but hear the author’s voice in your head as you read his recollections of unsuccessful Vancouver Canucks runs to the Stanley Cup final. Thankfully, you can hear it & cheer as he recounts his own (admittedly unlikely) tournament wins, battling as an adult those childhood demons that still hang about the rink.
Grant may be small in stature, but he stands tall when he calls himself “still a gimpy, small, lopsided goaltender who always made the first move, who flopped like a wounded moth and let in way too many goals.” He may be called ‘The Guesser’ by bearded Ontarian rockers, but for starting up the Flying Vees, he’s forever ‘The Kingpin’ to his teammates. That’s probably why, at 41 years of age & drinking Black Label from the Duffers League championship trophy — seriously, man, ain’t there any craft beer in North Vancouver? — Grant was already thinking about the end of the off-season: “I couldn’t wait for the next hockey season to begin.”
The CBC’s Grant Lawrence makes a diving save with his mask during Duffers League action in North Vancouver. (The puck is actually visible under his neck protector if you look for it.) Photo by Jason Kurylo for Pucked in the Head.
