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August 1, 2011
April 7, 2011
Musings on Round Two
The Kelowna Rockets are in town for tonight’s WHL Western Conference Playoffs round two opening game against the Portland Winterhawks. The two teams played four times during the regular season with Portland winning 3 of the 4 games. The lone loss came in Kelowna back in January. The Rockets have been a very strong team down the stretch and I believe they will be a bit more challenging than the Everett Silvertips were in the first round.
Both teams swept their opponents in the opening round of the playoffs so they are well rested and presumably have had some good practices and have watched a lot of film. It’s been a long layoff for both teams so the possibility exists that one or both teams may be lacking some intensity or focus tonight. However, I suspect the layoff will have no impact on either team, both will be ready to play. I do expect the series to be a little more competitive but I think/hope the Hawks will prevail in five games to move on to round three against the winner of the TC – Spokane series.
The format for this series is rather odd with game one tonight and game two on Sunday adding another (essentially) three day layoff between games one and two. The delay is a matter of scheduling, the Lakers are in town tomorrow to play the Blazers and there is the Nikehoops summit at the Rose Garden on Saturday. The fact that the Winterhawks have chosen to not make use of the Memorial Coliseum on Saturday tells me they view the Rose Garden as important to the fans and the team. Apparently the extra lodging and food costs for the Rocket’s extended stay in Portland in being picked up by the Winterhawks, as mandated by the league. I’m told that due to the weekend’s building conflicts that Kelowna had offered to host games one and two but the Hawks wanted the round openers to be played on home ice, despite the additional costs. Games three and four will be played in Kelowna on Tuesday/Wednesday of next week with a Friday night game scheduled for the Rose Garden, if necessary. Game 6 will be in Kelowna with game 7 in Portland, both if necessary.
We will be on the glass in Sec 114 tonight when the puck drops at 7 PM. Looking forward to a competitve series. Go Hawks!!
April 6, 2011
Yesterday UPS dropped off a Jura ENA5 Capresso machine along with a milk cooler and 20 lbs of coffee!! Unbelievably amazing gift from an unbelievably amazing couple. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!
March 29, 2011
APA Pool League
Played in my APA League last night and beat a very strong 6. Confidence is soaring!
March 28, 2011
March 28, 2011
Tony Silvertips. The ultimate Everett Silvertips (andWHL) fan and also one hell of a nice guy!
March 28, 2011
Notes from Sec 114
The Winterhawks dominated play in both games over the weekend and walked away with a pretty easy 2-0 advantage over the Everett Silvertips in Round 1 of the 2011 WHL Western Conference Playoffs. My keys to victory were to score early and minimize cheap penalties. The Hawks must have been listening as they took an early lead both nights and never looked back. Also, PIM’s were very low and the special teams play was excellent.
The one area I was most concerned with coming into the playoffs was our goaltending. Mac Carruth had suffered a concussion followed by a leg injury and has had very little playing time. Our backup, Keith Hamilton has done an excellent job filling in but lacks the depth and experience Mac brings to the table. Don’t get me wrong, Hammie can, and should, be starting somewhere in the league and we are damn lucky to have him and he is one of my favorite Hawks. However, make no mistake, Mac is BACK in a big way! He got the shutout in game 1 and allowed only 2 in game 2. He looked sharp and made some great saves, displayed excellent awareness, played the angles very well, managed rebounds very well and was generally a stone wall in front of the net. You can see his confidence grow with every blocked shot. He is starting to peak at just the right time, or has simply stepped up his game for the playoffs. Whatever, it’s a welcome change!!
Speaking of welcome changes, I’m not seeing the chippy play after the whistle from many of the players. I’ve actually witnessed Brad Ross contentedly skate away from a mini scrum at the net on a few occasions. Last night an opposing player had him in what looked like a headlock, it may have been that he pushed his head down, whatever it was, Ross just skated away from it with no comment. On the next play he got hammered, hard, high and just took it while the opposing player was hauled off to the penalty box. I can remember the time, not so long ago (like last week) when Ross would have turned that into a matching minor at minimum. Instead, we got the power play!! I’ve seen a few instances of this from a lot of Hawks players. It’s a welcome change and a key to a deep run!
The depth on this team just astounds me. Our top three lines can legitimately be #1 lines on any team in the dub. Clearly, Ryan J has emerged as the leader on the ice but we see great leadership from so many players. Clearly everyone is finding that little something extra you reserve for the playoffs. Cunningham has been an animal, he played in his 60th career WHL playoff game yesterday. WOW!! An amazing number, the experience and leadership he brings to the table is priceless. Yes fans, we clearly got the better end of that trade There are not enough superlatives for Nino and Ryan. Throw in Ross, Rattie, Peters, Jordan, Eviston, Leipsic, Swenson,Bartschi, Boychuck and all the others, easily the strongest offense in the league. Aronson and Rutkowski, Morrow and Wrenn, Pouliot…Awesome defense guys. How underrated is Wotherspoon? Hoping to see more of Petan and Ius in Everett.
Shout out to the Dads who brought their young sons to the game and sat in the second row of 114. You guys were so good to your kids, it really warmed out hearts to see you be so attentive and patient with the boys. We could tell how much they meant to you. The game was a “moment” in those youngsters lives that you made special for them. They will always remember it. To the guy directly behind us, I hope your son enjoys the game puck!.
How awesome was it to re-connect with some of our Everett Hockey FANatic friends? I was really hoping we would see you all down here. We missed seeing Woody & Kyoko but to all of you, Joyce, Doris & Tom Tony and…darn, can’t remember her name, thanks for coming down. It was fun chatting on Saturday and hanging out with you before the game Sunday . As your friend, sorry you experienced the losses, I know you all are big time Tips fans and the losses hurt. As an opposing fan….Thhhhhhtptptpttptptpt!!
I suspect you will all be Winterhawk fans next week J
Was very cool to listen to Andy and the gang on 98.1 inside the Rose Garden. The 10 dollar radio was well worth it!
Finally joined the Booster Club. WooHoo?
Had lunch with Sis on Saturday before the game. The find of the weekend was Newport Seafood Grill on Broadway. Awesome happy hour menu, large portions, cheap prices. We will definitely make this a favorite pregame spot. We did Spirit of 77 on Sunday. May be fun to take in a Timbers game there. The food was really good!
To the complainers on Facebook who feel the Sunday attendance was low. You are wrong, let’s just agree to disagree. Nuff said.
March 18, 2011
Winterhawks notes
I wanted to share a few snippets we overheard Wednesday in the Rose Garden for a group of fans sitting right behind us. There was a family of four, Dad , Mom, and two teenaged boys.
When the National Anthems were sung – There was quite a bit of laughter when O Canada was sung. Upon completion of both anthems Mom wondered aloud why they sung O Canada, asking “was that supposed to be some kind of joke”?
The boys decided that each team supplied one referee. They did not like theVancouver referee at all but there was not much grumbling about the Portland referee.
We scored two goals early, as is customary the fans performed the TNT “chop”, one of the boys wondered aloud “are they going to do that everytime they score? It is kind of annoying”
“when is halftime?” was asked after the first and second period breaks and then, late in the third they stated that the fourth quarter was going to be awesome.
We were mildly amused by the running dialog all night. This led us to wonder what we sounded like when we first started going to the games. I think it’s safe to say that we knew when a Canadian team was playing, O Canada is sung, that the teams do not supply referees and that a hockey game has three periods, not quarters. Beyond that, we may have provided a night or two of entertainment for some seasoned fans.
Meanwhile in the front row of section 113 we witnessed a handful of fans who thought it was fun to kick the glass continuously and beat on it every time a player skated by. Small wonder that they were all drinking and the more they drank, the more that glass was rocking. Seriously, they were just like little kids, easily amused by making the wall move. Think about it, there is absolutely no point in kicking the wall and watching it sway back and forth. What kind of idiot gets off on that? Do they do it simply because they are asked not to do it? The ushers visited them many times to talk to them about their behavior, all the fans did was to get belligerent and argumentative. I thought they would be ejected at some point but the ushers never did anything except visit them 4-5 times per period. I plan on asking the ushers tonight what the story was and why the fans were not removed from the game. I’m curious to discover where the line is. As the entire row of seats adjacent to mine are not held by any season ticket holder I’m concerned that with the playoffs coming I may get some classless idiot thinking that it’s cool to beat the glass and rock the walls for the entire duration of the game.
March 10, 2011
March 10, 2011
A few different bald eagles spotted out on Whidbey Island.
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