A little weekend recap action

Let's just do this note style.

- A really well played game by Seattle on Saturday resulted in a bit of a heartbreaking shootout defeat. It's no secret that the Tbirds have had trouble with Portland all season, being blown out in many of their meetings and failing to win a game. Saturday night it looked like that might change as Seattle played one of their best games against Portland all season. The first period was solid as an aggressive forecheck created some chances and helped keep Portland's offense off the baord. Despite giving up 2 goals and falling behind 2-0 the 2nd period was a lot of the same as the Tbirds generated many scoring chances and simply failed to cash in on their chances until young Branden Troock buried a pass from Lindsay Nielsen to get back to within 1. At this point I needed to head down to the locker rooms to get dressed for the "All-Star" game so I didn't see the third period... but as I understand it, Seattle played a solid 3rd period as well with Branden Troock feeding a pass through to a streaking Tyler Alos to tie the score just 5 minutes into the period. Seattle even got the first goal of the shootout as Burke Gallimore buried a shot past Curtis to give Seattle a 1-0 lead in the shootout but it just wasn't to be as Chris Francis and Luke Walker scored while Troock and Prab Rai missed and Portland skated away with the 3-2 win.

- The Dillon hit. Let's talk about this for a second. I have had a chance to review the video tape probably 10 different times and my opinion has probably changed slightly from what I initially thought. Initially at the game and the first couple of times I watched the tape I thought the hit was pretty bad and I could not believe how the "Smiths" found a way to call nothing on Schneider. The more I watched it the more my opinion began to change. If you really slow the tape down (which obviously isn't of the highest quality) it becomes pretty arguable that Schneider hit Dillon with an elbow on the play. So here is what I now "believe" happened. Schneider closes on Dillon and checks him "cleanly" with the shoulder but follows through with his arms and hands high into the upper body and head area of Dillon. The high follow through is... to a certain extent... the reason why Dillon falls awkwardly and lands on his head knocking him out. As a result... my opinion (for whatever that is worth) is that Schneider should have been hit with a 2 minute minor for roughing and probably nothing more. In fact... I initially assumed that Seattle would send the video to the league office asking for a suspension but I honestly don't believe that should be the case. A high hit is a high hit and should be penalized, but I have always preached that you don't dish out the punishment based on the result of the hit (in this case a concussion). You must punish the action, not the result and the action was a penalty but I just don't think it was worse than a minor penalty.

- Having said that... the fact that the Smith's didn't call anything just emphasizes how horrible they are/were. Both of those officials should be ashamed of themselves for how they called that game. I'm not being a homer here... It was horrible on both sides. How does Portland not end up with one PP the entire game. You're telling me that we didn't commit one penalty all game? You're telling me that a player is allowed to go hard to the net and hit the goalie and it's ok because he only knocked him over lightly instead of roughly? I can't vent about referees more than this... it's pointless.

- I had a blast skating in the "Celebrity All-Star Game". I was pretty nervous... I didn't want to embarrass myself and while I think I'm a decent hockey player I'm not even close to as good as guys like Ryan Gibbons/Blake Knox and the other Tbird alums. I just wanted to try to hold my own and not make any brutal mistakes. After a couple of really cupcake shots on net (muffins perhaps?) I finally settled down a little bit and had a clean faceoff win that Al Kinisky ended up putting into the net. I didn't get credit for it but that should have been an assist. Scoring the goal was clearly the highlight for me... I just wanted to make sure I didn't miss the net!! Not sure how many people stayed to watch... but if you did thank you for doing so. More importantly and MOST importantly thank you to everyone who donated to the Ronald McDonald House, whether you did it on my behalf or not. I have heard that the early number was over $40,000 that was raised for the house and I successfully achieved my goal of raising over $1,000 personally. I think I might have even touched $1,100 or $1,200.

- Quick note on the Gold Medal Olympic game. Ryan Miller was just outstanding all tournament long and in the final game. A real shame for him to have to lose like that but what an incredible performance. It would have been amazing if the USA had won the gold on Canadian soil but I'm just fine with Canadians taking home the gold in the sport they invented. It was an epic game that will not soon be forgotten.

- Sunday was a much different story for Seattle as they were without the services of Rai, Schappert, Dillon and Fleming before losing Troock early in the game. Seattle was just no match for Tri-City with that many players out. The Tbirds are already the youngest team in the league (and also not a very good team) and you take away their top scorer, another 20 year old, their only 19 year old and two other players and you just don't have enough firepower. Before leaving the game, Troock added another assist and now has 6 points in just 7 games with the Birds. Could this kid really be a point per game player as a 16 year old?? Wow.

- Needs to be noted... Pickard saw a lot of rubber this weekend.