Tbirds start strong and finish stronger

Tbirds blow out Edmonton tonight in a very entertaining game at Key Arena.

Attendance was listed at 2791... ummm yeah right. Looked a little closer to maybe 1500 hundred tonight although the 2800 number was probably paid attendance. Pretty tough on any Tuesday night but especially on an election night.

Tbirds started fast and strong and were finally rewarded with just over a minute to go in the first period with a nice finish by Jim O'Brien from Prab Rai and Jonathan Parker.

That line had a fabulous night finishing with 3 points a piece and all with +3 ratings.

Tbirds got a little sloppy in the second period but still managed to finish the period with the second goal by Jim O'Brien to give the Birds a 3-1 lead going into the third period.

Greg Scott then took over in the 3rd period... and while he did not finish as one of the 3 stars of the game, it was only because the issue had already been decided. While Scott will not officially get credited with a Short Handed Goal... he was awarded a Penalty Shot while being dragged down during a penalty kill and converted on to the short side on Oil Kings starter Torrie Jung that gave the Tbirds a 5-1 lead and send Jung to the bench. Later... Scott scored again while short handed with a nifty move around the defense and finish past Dalyn Flette who relieved Jung.

Leblanc and Acolatse finished the scoring and sent the fans home with an 8 goal game and some free burgers from Dairy Queen.

Tbirds now 5-10-2, 12 points and 5 points away from getting back to the .500 mark with another home game coming up on Friday against Red Deer.

One last interesting note from tonight's game... Chris Cloud fought the one handed bandit in the 2nd as Jesse Pearson dropped the gloves with Cloud.... but at first appeared to forget to drop one of his gloves. After it appeared that Cloud asked Pearson "what the heck are you doing" and probably not exactly in those words the two proceed to exchange a few punches.

Now later... we noticed the reason why Pearson didn't drop his second glove and that was because his right hand had been taped up. I'm not going to bother to look up the exact rule but I know a player received either another penalty or misconduct from having their hand taped and getting into a scrap. What I didn't know was that apparently if you have your hand wrapped and you don't drop the glove(s) you don't get an additional penalty or misconduct for that. It appeared that Coach Rob Sumner had some kind of conversation with the Referee about this and nothing else became of it.

Box Score here
Game Story here

PS- This one was for Tuba Man..... everyone will miss him.