I was honestly too deflated about the loss last night to write anything right away. Tbirds lose last night 4-3 in Overtime on a fluke (but hard working) goal by Lucas Bloodoff.
I think coach Rob Sumner summarized the effort very well last night by essentially saying that they just didn't play to the level that one needs to play to eliminate a team. Kelowna battled all night to save their season and eventually extended it with the winner.
Seattle did not play poorly and held a 1-0 lead on a goal by Sena Acolatse in the 1st... but they fell behind 2-1 and 3-2 in the game before Greg Scott got an equally fortunate Power Play goal with 27 seconds left to send the game into OT.
On the Internet feed I honestly couldn't see the hit by Brady Leavold on Scott Jackson that resulted in the game tying Power Play for the Tbirds. Regan Bartel, who I think puts a pretty honest spin on things, said the call was poor at best and inexcusable at worst.
So.... it all comes down to Game 7 at the Key on Tuesday. The Tbirds fought hard for the last two months of the season to earn this Game 7 at Key Arena and the two teams have now proven that can win games on home ice.
Game 7's are everything you want to be a part of as an athlete and I would bet that these two teams will give it everything they have on Tuesday night to extend their seasons. One of the great things about Junior Hockey is the finality to the season for the 20 year old players. For them... there is no next season, there is no building for another run. Sure some and maybe most will play beyond this last season of Junior's, but there is something about knowing that this is the last time they will play with this team and these teammates that brings out the best in them. For Benn Olson, Scott Jackson and Ian McKenzie this could be their last game with this team and this franchise. I would be willing to bet those guys will give everything they can to extend this season for a little bit longer.
Hockey Challenge 2014
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2 comments :
Actually I was there last night and I and most of the T-Bird fans there thought that we were awful. Kelowna could have been up by three or four goals if not for Riku and the post.
To play a game like that in a possible clincher against a lesser team is not good. Did we expect Kelowna would just give up?
We score a huge goal at the end of the second to tie it and we only get four shots on net in the third? The first 19 mins we only had one! Then we get a huge gimme goal to tie it again and what do we do in OT? We get three shots in 11 mins!
Let's face it, there is no way Kelowna should have taken the series this far. We play a series like this against Tri and we get swept.
We just don't know which team will show up on Tuesday. Will it be the one that dominated game 5 and came out like gangbusters in OT of Game 3 or will it be the team that seemed to phone in games 1,2 and 6?
Game 7 at home, if we lose it will also be 3 out of 4 on home ice that we lost by a team that only lost 6 on home ice all season. We will not have deserved to win the series. If we survive this scare I'm not looking forward to the series with Tri the way I would have at the end of the regular season.
We need to be more consistent and play the hockey we know we can play. Anything less and we can begin to think baseball.
Yeah I was there also Saturday night, and I thought that we played an ordinary hockey game. When you need to put a team away you need to play a lot better than that. We play a lot of dump and chase and Kelowna has obviously adjusted they get to every loose puck on the boards and push it up. As for the late penalty it was a bad call, but so were the two soft calls to put us down 5 on 3 to give Kelowna a lead to begin with. Or the dive call on Nielsen, wow.... How classless of Prospera Place to out of no where ban the horns T-bird fans use because of complaints they were too loud in games 3 and 4. What a joke. Every Kelowna fan agreed that this was a dumb move. They sent the message loud and clear. We want you to be loud and supportive.... Only if your wearing a Rockets jersey! All the T-bird fans had thunderstix they are probably banned now too!
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