The Abbotsford Heat beat the Hamilton Bulldogs by a couple of field goals on Friday night, taking the first of back-to-back weekend games 6–0 in front of an appreciative crowd at the AESC. Blair Jones scored twice in his first game back from injury, while Corban Knight got off the schneid with a two-goal, three-point performance of his own after collecting just two assists in his previous nine games. The Heat went 2-for-5 with the man advantage, and obviously had a perfect night on the penalty kill.
Chad Billins looks on as Joni Ortio makes one of his 34 saves during a 6-0 Abbotsford Heat win over the Hamilton Bulldogs. Photo by Jason Kurylo for Pucked in the Head.
The Vancouver Giants put the boots to the visiting Lethbridge Hurricanes with an impressive 10–0 Friday night win on home ice. Payton Lee’s first shutout of the season was lost next to the offensive explosion at the other end of the ice — the Giants dominated, holding a huge edge in puck possession and putting 40 shots on the poor bastards between the Hurricanes pipes.
Payton Lee stopped 18 shots for his second career WHL shutout as the Vancouver Giants spanked the Lethbridge Hurricanes 10–0 at the Pacific Coliseum. Photo by Jason Kurylo for Pucked in the Head.
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.
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.
Great Northwest Showcase
January 3–4 at Bill Copeland Arena in Burnaby SFU, UBC, U of North Dakota, Princeton
Tickets start at $10
The 2014 Great Northwest Showcase takes place January 3–4 at Bill Copeland Arena in Burnaby. The SFU Clan host the UBC Thunderbirds, UND (Fighting Sioux) and Princeton Tigers in four high-level collegiate hockey games. Tickets start at just ten bucks a seat.
The SFU hockey program has made some serious steps forward over the past few seasons. One of the biggest strides was the two-day Great Northwest Showcase, which brought NCAA teams — specifically, the Oklahoma Sooners and Arizona State Sun Devils — to Burnaby. This year, January 3–4 will see teams from the University of North Dakota and Princeton University ice teams at Bill Copeland against SFU and the UBC Thunderbirds. That’s right, frickin’ Princeton. Ivy League, baby.
For the uninitiated, UND (formerly called the Fighting Sioux) is only a seven-time NCAA Div 1 champion. This year, no fewer than twelve roster spots are filled by NHL draftees, including Adam Tambellini (son of ex-Canuck Steve, and a member of last year’s Surrey Eagles team that went to the national Junior A championships). Alumni include NHLers like Jonathan “Captain Serious” Toews, Ed “I’ll Pay You a Billion Dollars” Belfour, Zach “Like Sunday Pa-Mornin'” Parise and Mike “Good Gravy I’m a Hairy, Hairy Man” Commodore. The tournament’s finale features another alumnusin the puck drop ceremony: Garry “Ex-Canuck Turned Analyst” Valk.
More, including bobbleheads and video links, after the jump.
The Vancouver Giants received a lump of coal in their Christmas stockings Sunday night, as their seven-game home win streak was snapped by the Prince George Cougars. It was just the third regulation loss in 19 games for the Giants, who remain in seventh place in the Western Conference going into the Christmas break.
Carter Popoff (@carter_popoff) opened the scoring for the Vancouver Giants, but the Giants dropped a 3–1 decision to the Prince George Cougars going into the Christmas break. Photo by Jason Kurylo for Pucked in the Head.
Carter Popoff scored his tenth of the year at 17:02 of the first period, a beauty of an individual effort. Popoff poke checked Zach Pochiro at the Cougar blueline, then held the puck on a 2-on-0 break and made a slick deke around a sprawling Ty Edmonds to open the scoring.
However, Vancouver gave up two in quick succession to start the second. Pochiro and Jordan Tkatch scored goals for the Cougars just 25 seconds apart for a lead they would never relinquish. Other than that brief lapse in the second period, the Giants dominated play, pouring 42 shots on Edmonds — including 25 in the second period alone — but couldn’t manufacture the tying goal in front of 6,324 fans. Klarc Wilson added an insurance goal with one second remaining into an empty net. Edmonds, who picked up his 11th win on the season, was the unanimous choice for first star honours ahead of Vancouver skaters Brett Kulak and Tyler Benson.
Giants goaltender Payton Lee stopped 23 of 25 shots in the loss. It was the third game in three nights for both teams, who each went 0-for-4 on the power play, including a five-minute major in the third period to Giants captain Dalton Thrower for a high open-ice elbow.
Prince George goaltender Ty Edmonds stopped 41 of 42 Vancouver Giants shots en route to a 3-1 win at the Pacific Coliseum. Photo by Jason Kurylo for Pucked in the Head.
Vancouver Giants goaltender Jared Rathjen earned his first ever WHL shutout with a 3–0 win over the Everett Silvertips on Friday night. Photo by Jason Kurylo for Pucked in the Head.
Roberto Luongo wasn’t the only goaltender to throw a goose egg on Friday night. Down the street, Jared Rathjen made 22 saves against the Everett Silvertips to earn the first shutout of his WHL career.
Thousands of stuffed animals were collected for local children’s charities when Trent Lofthouse opened the scoring at 9:04 of the second period. Rathjen (@JRathjen33) didn’t get teddy bears rained down upon him for his work, but he stifled four Everett power play opportunities and kept the league’s fourth leading scorer, left winger Joshua Winquist, off the board. It’s just the second time since October 20th that Winquist has failed to hit the score sheet.
More, including quotes from Rathjen, after the jump.
The Abbotsford Heat spanked the Iowa Wild 6–2 on Wednesday. They skated, they hit, they looked like they wanted to win, and they scored a couple of lucky goals to boot. Joni Ortio made several impressive saves en route to his twelfth win of the season, and Ben Street scored a pair to bring his AHL season total to 16 goals in 22 games.
Iowa Wild forward Erik Haula scored twice to power his team past the Abbotsford Heat Thursday night. Photo by Jason Kurylo for Pucked in the Head.
The following night, the home side played decidedly less inspired hockey, and Joey MacDonald fought the puck on two questionable goals and several iffy rebounds. The Heat deservedly hit the L column to end the homestand with a 4–2 loss.
