Giants 3 at Seattle 2 Oct 19

[Swando]

Well I dealt with a poor internet feed to watch a rather boring but successful Giants 3-2 OT win.
Typical Giants came out like gang busters and out shot the T Birds 9-0 before Sexsmith faced a shot. On their 2nd PP opportunity Blum slipped in from the point and buried a pass from Kane. In the second period a fluke goal credited to Kane made it 2-0. The Birds pressed in the 2nd a were rewarded for their hard work by scoring on a SH. Repik misplayed the puck at our point and allowed Halloway break in on a 2 on 1 . Blum left Sexy to take the shooter and Holloway out waited Sexsmith and roofed a shot to make the score 2-1. It was rather even until 1/2 way thru the 3rd another odd man break for the Birds. Holloway once again came in on a 2 on 1 but this time made a perfect pass and Eberle tapped it in.
The game went into a 5 min. OT and Berube went from goat to Great!. He was the first man back on a dump in and had plenty of time to pass the puck, however he was stripped of the puck and if not for a boucing pass the Bird would have had a great chance at a goal. Wright chased the puck up the wing and did a semi-dumpin and then sort of recovered his own dump in and the puck came out in from and Berube was there to put in the winner.
The Seattle announcers said it was a bad bounce off the boards --maybe so.

Difficult to assess the game as the announcers often called the wrong names and the feed was very poor and off and on. I'd say they played well enough to win and out shot the Birds 40-28 or something like that. No one stood out but Palazzo was out there a ton for being a new guy. He seemed to do okay and didn't try anything cute. Henry had a scrap and it was a toss - up.
Paluso and Gervais did not dress. Reich took a stupid penalty to cancell a PP and sat for a while.. Near the end of the 3rd he took a 10 min misconduct.

[dondo]

Listened to this one on the radio after I managed to locate the cable broadcast of Evolution. The more that I have to search for the game the more irritated I am getting. Not having the game on the radio after the game for the post-show game going home is extremely frustrating as that's where a lot of Hayzer's and Giants trends tidbits come from.

The Giants need to find a station that has a broadcast range which covers the city to commit to all of their games. This all over the dial crap and on the internet only is so counterproductive to developing the rabid fan-base the Giants should be craving, but could care less about.

Giants Clip T-Birds 3-2 OT - VGHQ (http://www.vancouvergiantshq.com/October_19_GiantsbkClipbkT-Birds_152.html)


Giants Clip T-Birds
Vancouver 3 Seattle 2 OT

Don Robinson


The Giants went into tonight’s tilt winning three straight and stretched that streak to four thanks to an overtime winner off of Mike Berube. This was the first of four total meetings the two teams have this season in yet another ridiculous scheduling arrangement that has the Giants meeting the Bruins 10 times, the T-Birds 4 times and Silvertips 6 times. What kind of schedule is that? The league has changed to a conference playoff format (as opposed to a divisional match-up), but the teams play different teams in the same division different numbers of times? Its time the WHL figured out what the hell they want to do with the schedule, cause frankly this crap is unacceptable. The teams should play conference opponents x number of times, and division opponents x number of times, not some haphazard arrangement according to the whims of the schedulers. Where’s the consistency?

Anyway back to the game and being a Friday it was broadcast on Evolution again, which to be blunt - sucks. How the Giants expect to get any continuity moving their fans all over the radio dial eludes me. Jonny Blum opened the scoring on the PP, sneaking in and pounding home a rebound off of an Evander Kane shot. Kane put the visitors up by two mid-second with a solo effort. Seattle got that one back off of a turnover on the PP. Bud Holloway scored short-handed to close the gap to one as seconds ticked down in the middle stanza. Early in the third Jan Eberle tied up the game, picking the top corner glove-side on Sexsmith. The two teams played the rest of regulation to a 2-2 draw each earning a point for being tied after sixty minutes. Just 1:50 into OT, James Wright and Lance Bouma spring Mike Berube free down the slot with the puck and Berube makes no mistake snapping it past rookie Finnish goalie, and contracted Tampa Bay prospect, Riku Helenius, who was full money tonight for his squad. Tyson Sexsmith robbed a few of the T-Bird snipers himself, early on in the game to keep his team in the lead, making some brilliant reads and sharp glove grabs, keeping the Birds off the score-sheet until late in the second.

The Giants went 1 for 5 on the PP, while holding their opponents to 0 for 7 – the third game in row that they have blanked their opponents on the PP, and still have only allowed six regular season PP goals against. The Giants out shot the T-Birds 41-25. 16 yr old Rookie Evander Kane now has five goals and eight points in nine games played this season. Spencer Machacek was a –2 on the night. Jonathon Blum’s scoring streak is now at 10 straight games, currently the best in the league. The journeyman D-man and anchor on the Giants blue-line now has 13 points in 11 games.

This game was the first of yet another three games in three consecutive days. The Giants fared well last weekend winning all three games, with the third being the most convincing win of all. The Giants head back to Vancouver to face their much hated rival Everett Silvertips at the Pacific Coliseum on Saturday and host the Spokane Chiefs on Sunday. The ‘Tips have turned their early season slump around and have now won four straight, edging out the Rockets tonight 4-3. Puck drops tomorrow night at 7pm PDT.

Three Stars

1. Evander Kane
2. Bud Holloway
3. Benn Olson

couldn't wait swando? :p -- at least get the title format right eh? :evil: :thumb:

[Swando]

couldn't wait swando? -- at least get the title format right eh?

Hey Dondo--It wasn't that I couldn't wait but you were so !!!!slow. Anyways my recap of the goals had more truth than listening to Joey I think.

Kane's goal was a dump in that the d man swiped at and deflected in of another d man's skate and into the net.

I thot we played a very defensive type game..We got a lot of shots but none were of the "great chance veriety". The Birds got their chances on our miscues.

The 3 stars were Kane, Holliway, and Olsen. I'd would put them in the order of

Holliway, Kane and Olsen. Watching Holliway reminds me of what it like to have an offensive center..I have sort of forgot what they were!!!
I think the Finnish goalie that Seattle has is the real deal as well!

[Swando]

This was the first of four total meetings the two teams have this season in yet another ridiculous scheduling arrangement that has the Giants meeting the Bruins 10 times, the T-Birds 4 times and Silvertips 6 times. What kind of schedule is that? The league has changed to a conference playoff format (as opposed to a divisional match-up), but the teams play different teams in the same division different numbers of times? Its time the WHL figured out what the hell they want to do with the schedule, cause frankly this crap is unacceptable. The teams should play conference opponents x number of times, and division opponents x number of times, not some haphazard arrangement according to the whims of the schedulers. Where’s the consistency?

Dondo : I happen to like this schedule for the sake of the players. 1/2 of the boys are still in school and in our case probably 3/4. Maybe the management knew this when they accepted the schedule. It is 8+ hours to PG, Spokane and Tri Cities. Therefore to only have to play Spokane 2x, Tri 3 and PG 8 that is okay with me. We play Chilliwack, 9 Kelowna 9 and Kamloops 8, PG 8,Everett 6 Seattle 4 and Portland 4. I'd say this is an Ownership saying let's keep the costs down. Giants of all teams could afford an even schedule but others could not......I say this because Toigo would fly to PG if he could...you get the drift. I don't think the players like the long bus trips on a regular basis other than their Eastern swing which is different every year as well. One more thing......how would you like to be PG? or Tri Cities or even Portland? Spokane always plays more of the Alberta division than we do because of the travel...as did Kootney when they were in our division.....So Dondo..as the years roll along and franchises get weak and strong I think that the powers at be say "It'll all even out"...I agree as so many teams make the play-offs"[/U

For example if we played Chilliwack "12" times when they were poor and we barely made into the playoffs or vice versa...then I don't think that we'd last long in the play-offs anyways. The only thing that may be a factor is winning the overall division banner for most points ( with an uneven schedule) and I wonder how important that is unless it is the Western or Memorial.

[dondo]

Swando you've gotta go back and count -- we play

BC Division: Chilliwack 10 times, Kelowna 8, Kamloops 8, PG 8 (but without any of those double games in PG as we usually do),

US Division: Portland 4, Seattle 4, Spokane 2, Tri-City 4, Everett 6
obviously they are doing this in terms of proximity, but its unfair and unbalanced if they are serious about having a Conference based playoff format. We should be playing our conference opponents an equal number of times to create parity and we barely see any of the other teams in the rest of the dub.

So the US division teams have a distinct advantage this season because Portland is so poor right now. It should not depend on how a particular team is playing it should depend on a balanced schedule so that it is fair for all the teams. There's a way to schedule so that road trips don't go all over the place, but a brief look at the schedule makes me think that its pretty haphazard.

For example we are in PG and then the next day at home facing Everett, and then take on Portland (at home), on the Sunday for yet another three games in three nights round of tilts.

I'm sure making the schedule is difficult, but I feel that you should play your division rivals the same number of games, and your other division conference rivals the same number of games.

edit: oh and Swando you do know I was just bugging you -- except you do know its Holloway, and Olson right? At least Kane was correct. :p It takes time to craft a proper recap not just throw some crap up on the forum :D :thumb: (again j/k )

[old_time_hockey]

You know what is funny about Evolution games? At UBC, you can't get signal.

If you are in Nanaimo, it actually comes in. I don't get it. But the only thing Evolution should be getting is dumped. The internet radio was garbage so I decided to click on my normal radio and there it was. Not perfect, but at least it didn't cut in and out.

[dondo]

Evolution does broadcast on cable FM as well -- 104.5 cable FM .. signal was still weak, but I could hear Joey