dondo
02-09-2009, 03:14 PM
Not sure why American hockey arenas have pretty much eliminated some of the prime seats giving them over to huge swaths of concrete in the corners right at the glass. They then charge exorbitant amounts for the first two rows along the glass. In my mind its a waste of seating area, takes away prime seating and creates a void around the glass where the intensity of the crowd should be concentrated.
The Kent area is pretty bare bones, has too small a foyer area (can't imagine if the arena was full and not three quarters full) and for some reason has no entrance to the benches from behind benches, having instead the players enter from the ends of the ice with the opposing team skating through the home team during warm-ups. Yeah that's not going to create any problems is it? I suppose the American arena designers are thinking with football minds (closer to centre-ice [the fifty yard line], higher is better and not with the game of hockey in mind at all.
Other than that though, its a good intimate arena with decent seats, a very nice scoreboard and a good rake to the seating. Looks like there are very few bad seats in the house, but the ends of rink focus on placing the patrons three or four rows above ice-level before they start the rows pushing more fans into the area where they have to look through that damn net.
Pretty expensive for Junior hockey as well (glass seats $30USD club seats 40USD, regular seats are $22USD), but maybe I'm just being picky. All in all despite the Giants sub-par effort it was good arena in which to watch a game and was an entertaining tilt. Great fans too, love their team, a lot of them are decently knowledgeable about hockey and there were no folks giving us the gears for wearing the opposing team's jersey. All in all a good experience.
btw in my opinion: best arena this trip Spokane by a mile, Kent a distant second and the sad old memorial in Portland a slim third.
here's how I saw it in Kent:
T-Birds Harass Giants
Vancouver 3 Seattle 4
Don Robinson
After posting a very nice shut-out in Spokane, Tyson Sexsmith stunk up the joint in Kent allowing two very soft goals on the way to breaking his team’s 10 game winning streak. The goalie was not the only culprit though as this was total team loss. The Giants timing was off, missing passes, bobbling the puck and frequently failing to hold it in the offensive zone by letting easy pucks trickle across the line. The G-Men lacked focus in the second and third and didn’t not battle for the win in the least when they were still close. They let two leads slip and never gutted it out as they normally would. The T-Birds brought a really intense PK challenging the puck carrier and the Giants failed to take advantage of the open ice and odd-man opportunities the Thunderbirds gave them. They squandered their PP chances, standing still, instead of keeping their feet moving and rotating through the zone and they were very slow getting to rebounds. Credit the T-Birds for collapsing well to the front of the net, and winning the puck battles in the corners and not giving the Giants any ice to make plays. Oftentimes in my mind the attention was of the obstructive kind as I witnessed more than a few pick plays being run regularly by the Seattle squad, but the Giants did not battle through those or earn their opportunities to draw the penalty or gain the ice.
The Giants opened the scoring off of a goal Calvin Pickard would want back. Nice effort by Casey Pierro-Zabotel to hold onto the puck for the wraparound which slipped five-hole along the ice into the net, but Pickard should have had it. Seattle then got two of their own, the first one coming four-on-four when former Giant Chris Cloud had a semi-breakaway. Cloud went to the crease with the puck and muscled a soft one dribbling over Sexy’s pad, a horrible effort by the Giants netminder. The T-Birds got another one on the PP as Hickey fired a shot from the point past Sexsmith. The Giants put their work boots on then for the only time in the game it seems and got those two back. The first one a defensive breakdown by the T-Birds as Pickard kicked a Basford shot out to the open side and the puck trickled past a backward skating defender right onto the stick of Mike Piluso in the high slot. Piluso buried the gift.
The Giants only PP goal of the game came off the stick of Nick Ross, who had a rough night other than the marker. Ross blasted a shot from the top of the face-off circle past a partially screened Pickard. That was the last goal the Giants would get as they squandered their PP chances, took two too-many men penalties and simply did not have the hunger or focus to get back into the game. The T-Birds got two in the second while the Giants watched them. Credit the pressure the T-Birds were applying, but in the end the Giants really should have worked through that traffic harder than they did. Greg Scott scored a very nice goal off the rush ripping the puck top corner on Sexy, on the PP. A few minutes later Hickey scored his second of the night, the go ahead goal, as Sexy bobbled a routine save in traffic and the puck lay in the crease area as Giants players skated over it. Hickey saw his chance, came in from the point and batted the loose puck home.
As they did in Portland the night before the Giants did not show up in the second as the T-Birds pressed hard on the forecheck and challenged the Giants players on the point. The Giants were not willing to battle through the traffic in this one, they were not facing a hot or even semi-hot goalie, but they were not willing to make sacrifices to go for the win in the third and floated through most of the period. The Thunderbird fans aren’t going to like me saying this, but the T-Birds did not beat the Giants, the Giants beat themselves and it was kind of pathetic in my mind. After gutting out a lot tougher games than this the Giants just gave in to the inevitable or something. It was a loss they should have taken and I am actually happy they weren’t able to pull a W out of this sub-par effort. Too many dump-ins, rarely maintaining possession of the puck and no puck support is what killed the Giants in this game, but mostly the lack of battle. The zebras were pretty bogus as well, but that no excuse. It may sound a bit harsh but the bar is a lot higher for this team and they really need to make sure that these kinds of games don’t slip out of their grasp as they have done so well this season, making sure they gut out these kinds of wins and in the process putting together a ridiculously amazing record this season.
The Giants went 1 for 6 on the PP, while allowing 2 for 8. They barely out-shot the home team 35 – 31, uncharacteristically allowing a ton of shots. Sexy allowed 2 goals on 10 shots, and then 4 on 22 before shutting the door in the third giving his team a chance to come back were they interested to do so. They weren’t and they took the loss. Nick Ross bobbled the puck frequently, the top players couldn’t get the biscuit to stay on their stick and barely missed a few really great opportunities due to poor timing and lack of drive. They played to the outside and dumped the puck, even though the T-Birds frequently gave them the blue-line, and did not drive the net. The Giants will take on the Bruins back at the Coliseum on Wednesday. The puck drops at 7pm PST.
Three Stars
1) Thomas Hickey
2) Greg Scott
3) Chris Cloud
The Kent area is pretty bare bones, has too small a foyer area (can't imagine if the arena was full and not three quarters full) and for some reason has no entrance to the benches from behind benches, having instead the players enter from the ends of the ice with the opposing team skating through the home team during warm-ups. Yeah that's not going to create any problems is it? I suppose the American arena designers are thinking with football minds (closer to centre-ice [the fifty yard line], higher is better and not with the game of hockey in mind at all.
Other than that though, its a good intimate arena with decent seats, a very nice scoreboard and a good rake to the seating. Looks like there are very few bad seats in the house, but the ends of rink focus on placing the patrons three or four rows above ice-level before they start the rows pushing more fans into the area where they have to look through that damn net.
Pretty expensive for Junior hockey as well (glass seats $30USD club seats 40USD, regular seats are $22USD), but maybe I'm just being picky. All in all despite the Giants sub-par effort it was good arena in which to watch a game and was an entertaining tilt. Great fans too, love their team, a lot of them are decently knowledgeable about hockey and there were no folks giving us the gears for wearing the opposing team's jersey. All in all a good experience.
btw in my opinion: best arena this trip Spokane by a mile, Kent a distant second and the sad old memorial in Portland a slim third.
here's how I saw it in Kent:
T-Birds Harass Giants
Vancouver 3 Seattle 4
Don Robinson
After posting a very nice shut-out in Spokane, Tyson Sexsmith stunk up the joint in Kent allowing two very soft goals on the way to breaking his team’s 10 game winning streak. The goalie was not the only culprit though as this was total team loss. The Giants timing was off, missing passes, bobbling the puck and frequently failing to hold it in the offensive zone by letting easy pucks trickle across the line. The G-Men lacked focus in the second and third and didn’t not battle for the win in the least when they were still close. They let two leads slip and never gutted it out as they normally would. The T-Birds brought a really intense PK challenging the puck carrier and the Giants failed to take advantage of the open ice and odd-man opportunities the Thunderbirds gave them. They squandered their PP chances, standing still, instead of keeping their feet moving and rotating through the zone and they were very slow getting to rebounds. Credit the T-Birds for collapsing well to the front of the net, and winning the puck battles in the corners and not giving the Giants any ice to make plays. Oftentimes in my mind the attention was of the obstructive kind as I witnessed more than a few pick plays being run regularly by the Seattle squad, but the Giants did not battle through those or earn their opportunities to draw the penalty or gain the ice.
The Giants opened the scoring off of a goal Calvin Pickard would want back. Nice effort by Casey Pierro-Zabotel to hold onto the puck for the wraparound which slipped five-hole along the ice into the net, but Pickard should have had it. Seattle then got two of their own, the first one coming four-on-four when former Giant Chris Cloud had a semi-breakaway. Cloud went to the crease with the puck and muscled a soft one dribbling over Sexy’s pad, a horrible effort by the Giants netminder. The T-Birds got another one on the PP as Hickey fired a shot from the point past Sexsmith. The Giants put their work boots on then for the only time in the game it seems and got those two back. The first one a defensive breakdown by the T-Birds as Pickard kicked a Basford shot out to the open side and the puck trickled past a backward skating defender right onto the stick of Mike Piluso in the high slot. Piluso buried the gift.
The Giants only PP goal of the game came off the stick of Nick Ross, who had a rough night other than the marker. Ross blasted a shot from the top of the face-off circle past a partially screened Pickard. That was the last goal the Giants would get as they squandered their PP chances, took two too-many men penalties and simply did not have the hunger or focus to get back into the game. The T-Birds got two in the second while the Giants watched them. Credit the pressure the T-Birds were applying, but in the end the Giants really should have worked through that traffic harder than they did. Greg Scott scored a very nice goal off the rush ripping the puck top corner on Sexy, on the PP. A few minutes later Hickey scored his second of the night, the go ahead goal, as Sexy bobbled a routine save in traffic and the puck lay in the crease area as Giants players skated over it. Hickey saw his chance, came in from the point and batted the loose puck home.
As they did in Portland the night before the Giants did not show up in the second as the T-Birds pressed hard on the forecheck and challenged the Giants players on the point. The Giants were not willing to battle through the traffic in this one, they were not facing a hot or even semi-hot goalie, but they were not willing to make sacrifices to go for the win in the third and floated through most of the period. The Thunderbird fans aren’t going to like me saying this, but the T-Birds did not beat the Giants, the Giants beat themselves and it was kind of pathetic in my mind. After gutting out a lot tougher games than this the Giants just gave in to the inevitable or something. It was a loss they should have taken and I am actually happy they weren’t able to pull a W out of this sub-par effort. Too many dump-ins, rarely maintaining possession of the puck and no puck support is what killed the Giants in this game, but mostly the lack of battle. The zebras were pretty bogus as well, but that no excuse. It may sound a bit harsh but the bar is a lot higher for this team and they really need to make sure that these kinds of games don’t slip out of their grasp as they have done so well this season, making sure they gut out these kinds of wins and in the process putting together a ridiculously amazing record this season.
The Giants went 1 for 6 on the PP, while allowing 2 for 8. They barely out-shot the home team 35 – 31, uncharacteristically allowing a ton of shots. Sexy allowed 2 goals on 10 shots, and then 4 on 22 before shutting the door in the third giving his team a chance to come back were they interested to do so. They weren’t and they took the loss. Nick Ross bobbled the puck frequently, the top players couldn’t get the biscuit to stay on their stick and barely missed a few really great opportunities due to poor timing and lack of drive. They played to the outside and dumped the puck, even though the T-Birds frequently gave them the blue-line, and did not drive the net. The Giants will take on the Bruins back at the Coliseum on Wednesday. The puck drops at 7pm PST.
Three Stars
1) Thomas Hickey
2) Greg Scott
3) Chris Cloud