I didn’t get a chance to post pictures from the final game of the Great Northwest Showcase, a 5-3 win for the Arizona State Sun Devils over the host SFU Clan. The Sun Devils found their legs between the previous day’s misadventures against the UBC Thunderbirds — and chatter by players during pre-game stretches suggested the Americans aren’t used to the aggressive forechecks thrown at them by the T-birds on Friday.
Day one of the inaugural Great Northwest Showcase is in the books, and it was a good day for the boys eating home cooking. Both the UBC Thunderbirds and SFU Clansmen iced winning sides against American collegiate sides — UBC thumped the NCAA’s number-one ranked Arizona State Sun Devils 8-2, while SFU shut out the number-six Oklahoma Sooners 4-0.
More after the jump, including a photo gallery for your visual pleasure.
The Simon Fraser University Clansmen are hosting familiar crosstown rivals and distant strangers alike this weekend, as the Great Northwest Showcase goes down on December 28-29 at the Bill Copeland Arena in Burnaby, BC.
It’s a great opportunity to check out some quality hockey in a very intimate setting — the Bill Copeland Arena in Burnaby screams small-town puck despite being in the middle of the Lower Mainland — and there are some interesting players to watch for as well.
The NHL’s justice system is broken. It’s gotten so bad that a lengthy suspension to a career predator who may have ended the season of a superstar is seen as laughable because of the suspensions that have gone before (or in the case of Shea Weber, the ones that have not gone before). Despite much acclaim early in the season, Brendan Shanahan has now clearly shown that, when the games really matter, he’s no better at meting out punishment than his predecessor, Colin “My Son Plays for the Bruins So I Won’t Suspend Bruins and Miraculously They Just Won the Cup How About That” Campbell. If the NHL wants to regain any measure of credibility it needs to look to (and I’m holding my nose as I type this) the Conservative Party of Canada. It needs to establish clear and consistent rules (not guidelines, rules) for what constitutes a suspension and the length of that suspension. It needs to establish mandatory minimums.