I had a great experience playing in the Hockey Challenge yesterday morning as my E&D team defeated the Mobile Services team 5-0. I can't say I played a great game but the team win was great. With a record crowd of 6,138 the night was a success all around and I know the fans enjoyed the Tbirds game... with 5 goals, free burgers and a couple of fights... I think you would be hard pressed to find too many fans that weren't happy about last night.
Well... I'm one of those fans. Seattle did not have their best game and allowed the plucky Winterhawks (who lost 8-0 in Spokane the night before) to pull within 1 goal with 5 minutes to play in the game before Prab Rai sent the hungry fans home happy with the empty net goal in the closing minutes.
Seattle was sloppy for the most part... There must have been around 10 offside calls and where their protection of the net was the key to the victory over Vancouver last week, tonight their lack of protection was the reason why the game was even close.
This team continues to frustrate me... If anybody thinks this team has the ability to beat Spokane in the first round of the playoffs, I would immediately point to the 8-o win by Spokane over Portland and the 5-3 win by Seattle over Portland the next night. I just can't see any reason to believe that Seattle can win a game in Spokane in a playoff atmosphere without first seeing them play an excellent game on the road against a quality team... and based on Spokane's record and talent I can definitely see them coming into the Sho and stealing one game in the series.
Hopefully they will prove me wrong... I would love to be proved wrong, but until I see a more consistent high level of play, I'm just not seeing it.
Hockey Challenge 2014
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5 comments :
I would have say that I am not all happy about our performance last night, but a win is a win and 2 must have points. I guess its okay with me if we play like crap when we play a crap team, and win. We just need to continue playing well when we play tough teams, which we have been doing.
Now, lets play well tonight against a crap team.
GO BIRDS!!!
I'm right there with you Tyler. It was like the boys had mud on their skates and were just sludging around the ice. No get up and go at all. Props to Portland for playing like they wanted to win, off night for Mucha or we would have been on the losing end. Jordons a punk, but every Portland team has to have one eh? ;-) Hope for a better game tonight. Congrats on your win Tyler!
It's just T-bird hockey we have come to known, play to the level of your opponent every night....I thought we played poor... But I think Portland came into the game with a little fire tonight. I didn't even think we deserved to win. And as for Jordan he was just trying to use an unfortunate incident fire up his team. Portland might have pulled the game out last night if it weren't for bonehead rookie mistakes like Mucha's delay of game, Morrow shoving LeBlanc into his own goaltender, Jordan's retaliation penalty in the first, and his moronic gesture to Pickard.... They are young but those were just very avoidable mistakes....
P.S. Ponich is a terrible fighter a guy with that much reach and size on LeBlanc and he is trying to hold his jersey and shake him. I'm glad he got drilled.... I hate pansy fighters like that.... Kudos to Cloud and Schnieder for swinging away.
I agree about the lackluster game but there is something to be said about a team that beats the best in the entire CHL and can also score 5 goals and win when they are hardly trying. I disagree with Tyler on the post season scenario.
Spokane has been floundering and they just laid an egg at home against Tri (best team in the conference right now) in a game that ended their hopes for a division title.
Kelowna like us, plays down to their opponents level. They win in med hat and calgary and lose in red deer! Both teams can be beaten in as first round and Seattle is the team that can do it.
Thank you Tyler, finally a blog that has common sense, and tells us if things are not rosie. I am tired of reading our hometown blog ( Andy Kemper ) tells us about travel, and playing 3 games in 3 nights. He never is critical or has any insight or opinions on the games.
I went to the game, and I am a Winterhawk fan, I felt lucky to knowing the T-birds did not play a good game. I did like 15 year old Ty Rattie, keep an eye out on him
Brian in Sherwood
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