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View Full Version : Manning happy to finally have a 'home



CdnSailor
09-24-2011, 02:59 PM
It should be easy to pick Neil Manning out of the crowd of Vancouver Giants as they make their way onto the ferry this morning heading to Victoria for what will be the first Western Hockey League regular-season game on the island since 1994.

He'll be the one with the smile as wide as the Strait of Georgia as the Nanaimo product heads close to home to play his first hockey game in the area since the age of 15.

"It's going to be really cool," said the beaming 20-year-old Giants defenceman. "I was thinking about it, I haven't played a game on the island since major midget. What's cool is taking the ferry the other way to go to a game as opposed to going from Nanaimo to Vancouver to play games, like I did in minor hockey."

And there will be plenty of family sharing in the excitement as his parents John and Hilary take in the Giants' visit as the first regular-season opponent of the Victoria Royals when the two clubs battle at 7 p.m. at Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre. His older brother Brendan, who resides in Victoria, grandparents from North Vancouver and plenty of Nanaimo friends, now going to school at the University of Victoria, will also be on hand.

"No, I'm not paying for the tickets," Manning said with a laugh. "I'm so happy about that because I don't know how many tickets are going to be available."

Drafted in the second round of the 2006 WHL bantam draft (after the Giants took current NHLer Evander Kane in Round 1), Manning has had an exceptional career in Vancouver. The five-foot-11, 186-pounder has played all 72 regular-season games the last two years for general manager Scott Bonner and played 70 three seasons ago. That, after a disastrous 16-year-old campaign in which he broke both wrists and a thumb.

"He's been an ace for us," stressed Bonner. "We're lucky to have him at 20. If he had played that whole year at 16, he probably wouldn't have been here at 20. He missed almost a whole year. He played as a seventh defenceman the year we hosted the [Memorial] Cup. He didn't get to play, but he was there the whole time."

And most importantly, Manning is a quick study.

"He's an unbellieveable student," said Bonner. "He can be a lawyer or whatever he chooses. Nei lManning was going to be fine whether it was with hockey or school. He's a great role model on our team.

"That one year was an anomaly," said Bonner of the injury-plagued season. "He trains as hard or harder than anyone on our team. He takes more classes than anyone in university on our team and he's probably smarter than anyone on our team. He's a complete package."

On the ice, Manning will take on a role as a leader with the Giants after returning last week from the Chicago Blackhawks' camp where he skated on a free-agent tryout. Never drafted by an NHL club, Manning took in camp with the Philadelphia Flyers last year.

Now the Giants' iron man is focusing on his final year of junior, which ironically begins with back-to-back games against Victoria.

"It's really nice to have the league back in Victoria and, hopefully a couple of years down the road, maybe Nanaimo can get into the league," Manning said in all honesty. "It would probably be nice to have two teams on the island, so you can play four games on the trip.

"I think there are definitely smaller cities in the WHL who have a team, like Swift Current that's a town of 30,000. If Nanaimo could upgrade its arena, or get a new one, I'm sure Nanaimo could support a team."

But this weekend, the city will be supporting Manning.



Read more: http://www.timescolonist.com/sports/Manning+happy+finally+have+home+game/5451561/story.html#ixzz1YuEJAQT9