Gm 3 - Kelowna (Roll Call)

[ihlemic10]

Home opener, whos there? Sitting in my 'new' seat in 115.

[Tipped Off]

I'm guessing no one will miss it. Here's a schedule for you:

Friday 8am to 5 pm: Work
Friday 7:30-10 pm: Tips Hockey
Friday 10pm - midnight, Drive to Ellensberg area
Saturday 8am to 4 pm: Set up Elk Camp
Saturday 4pm to 6 pm: Drive back from Ellensberg
Saturday 7pm -9:30 pm: Tips Hockey
Saturday 11:59 pm - 8 am Sunday: Fly to Clearwater Florida for business trip.


Somewhere in there is a shower and eating.

[Sput]

I'm guessing no one will miss it. Here's a schedule for you:

Friday 8am to 5 pm: Work
Friday 7:30-10 pm: Tips Hockey
Friday 10pm - midnight, Drive to Ellensberg area
Saturday 8am to 4 pm: Set up Elk Camp
Saturday 4pm to 6 pm: Drive back from Ellensberg
Saturday 7pm -9:30 pm: Tips Hockey
Saturday 11:59 pm - 8 am Sunday: Fly to Clearwater Florida for business trip.


Somewhere in there is a shower and eating.


With this schedule I just have one question. Why set up and elk camp, when there is no prevision for actually going elk hunting in the week?

[ihlemic10]

Gotta love the busy schedule. I am fitting some overtime at work, should be a intresting weekend.

[Highlander_Yank]

Home opener, whos there? Sitting in my 'new' seat in 115.

My g/f and I will be there Friday and Saturday in our "eagle eye" seats in 219.

[Bob in Everett]

The Rockets may be 0-2 but that will mean nothing friday night, should be a good game which I think will come down to discipline and PP/PK. I'll be able to hobble to my 3rd row seats on crutches, no more wheelchair for me. :groovy:

[IceMan]

Not to go too off topic, but where are you hunting?

We typically setup shop out there in Ellensburg as well, about 10 miles out that dirt road, near Milk Canyon. Generally, we get about 20 or 30 guys out
there. Good times, back when they let you hunt after it starts to get cold ... but that's an argument for a different day.

We'll be back at the top of 119 *****in and hollerin all year long!

[Tipped Off]

Exit 101, between Ellensberg and Cle Elum. Head East up into the Manastash mountains. We are up almost to the top, by Bald Mountain,...at least that's what we call it. Last year we had to tractor our way out in the snow. Good year, though. We got 3 Elk between the 7 of us in camp.

[Tipped Off]

Silvertips

The puck starts here
By JIM RILEY

Special to The Seattle Times


PREV 1 of 3 NEXT



KATRINA BAKKE SPORTS PHOTOGRAPHY

Veteran Cody Thoring said of Friday's opening night: "I simply cannot wait."





Goalie Leland Irving was among the WHL's best.





Center Zach Hamill is a veteran at 18 years old.



Related

Silvertips statistics
Silvertips schedule

There will be lots of pyrotechnics at the Everett Events Center on Friday before the Everett Silvertips play their home opener against the Kelowna Rockets.

Fortunately for the sellout crowd that is expected for the 7:35 p.m. puck drop, all the extra hype for this season isn't really needed.

The Silvertips are loaded and despite all their success in their first three years of existence, they were built to be ready to make a championship run this season.

The Silvertips have a roster full of 18-year-old players who are now entering their third season in the league.

Leland Irving, Zach Hamill, Brady Calla, Taylor Ellington, Jonathan Harty and Graham Potuer all played at 16 two seasons ago and are now veterans at 18 this season

"People laughed at us for doing it then, but we were able to play young guys and still be competitive," General Manager Doug Soetaert said. "We gave the future an opportunity to develop. That has put us in the position we're in now."

That position is ranked as the top team in the entire Canadian Hockey League by a panel of NHL scouts.

The Silvertips, 2-0 after wins in Chilliwack and Kamloops, still have a couple of question marks to answer.

Standout center Peter Mueller, the WHL's rookie of the year last season, is still in training camp with the Phoenix Coyotes after being drafted in the first round (eighth overall).

If the Coyotes decide not to keep Mueller on their roster, he must be returned to the Silvertips by Oct. 4, the day before Phoenix begins its NHL season.

Ondrej Fiala, who was drafted in the second round (40th overall) by the Minnesota Wild, had off-season knee surgery and isn't expected to return to Everett until later this week from his home in the Czech Republic. It may be several weeks after that until he is ready to play.

On defense, the Silvertips return goalie Leland Irving, a first-round pick of the Calgary Flames (26th overall). Irving was among the best last season and has already collected the eighth shutout in his career in Everett's win over Kamloops.

Everett captain Cody Thoring is the last of the original Silvertips who won the Western Conference title in their expansion year.

The mention of opening night draws an expectant giggle.

"I simply cannot wait," Thoring said. "There's nothing like that rink when our fans get going. All that noise really helps. You can really hear it when there's a big hit or a score or a nice play. It really gets the adrenaline flowing."

Thoring has heard all the predictions, but isn't really listening.

"You can't take anything for granted in this league," Thoring said.

"We know we have 25 guys who really want to do well. We're optimistic every year. Expectations are high, but they have been every season I've been here."

Final game of suspension

Everett coach Kevin Constantine will serve the third and final game Friday of a suspension for making his team ride home on the bus in their gear following a lackluster exhibition loss in Kennewick.

Thoring said everyone understands the point Constantine was trying to make.

"It's always a pretty quiet, dark bus ride home anytime you lose," Thoring said. "We all thought we were going to have to skate when we got home so we were upset about that. We didn't and it made us realize that it's one thing to lose, it's quite another not to care when you're losing, even if it's an exhibition game."

Fransoo on point for Heshka

Jason Fransoo, who had 18 points in 72 games last season, leads the Silvertips with five points in two games this season.

The difference? Fransoo is now on the power play taking the place of graduated defenseman Shaun Heshka on the point.

Notes

• Everett is 1-2 in home openers and Kelowna comes in 0-2 this season.

• The Silvertips stay at home to play Kamloops on Saturday and then are off until Spokane comes to Everett on Oct. 6, followed by Seattle on Oct. 7.

[Tipped Off]

Silvertips romp in their home opener
Vartovnik scores twice as Everett beats Kelowna 4-1

By Nick Patterson
Herald Writer
EVERETT - The Everett Silvertips gave the crowd plenty to cheer about in their home opener Friday night.

Everett dominated play from start to finish, and the Silvertips breezed past the Kelowna Rockets 4-1 to remain perfect to start the season.

Lukas Vartovnik scored the first two goals of his WHL career and Zach Hamill added three assists for Everett, which improved its record to 3-0 while playing before a boisterous opening-night crowd at the Everett Events Center

"We had the crowd behind us tonight," said Hamill, who has six assists in three games. "That makes you work hard when emotions are high. That's what happened tonight. We started working hard in the corners and the crowd helped us out tonight. In the home opener it's hard to gauge how good the team is, but hopefully the crowd can give us the same kind of energy (tonight against Kamloops)."

Friday's game was never much of a contest. Everett outshot Kelowna 29-11 and held a comfortable 4-0 lead late in the second period. The Tips salted the game away in the third, holding the Rockets without a shot on goal the entire period.

And the Tips accomplished this despite not being at their sharpest. Everett had all kinds of trouble holding on to the puck early in the game, and the Tips didn't punish Kelowna too hard for taking 16 penalties.

"I thought we were a little bit sloppy at times," said Everett associate head coach John Becanic, who was behind the bench as head coach Kevin Constantine served the final game of his four-game suspension.

"I thought we worked hard for 60 minutes, we didn't lack passion or energy. Sometimes we didn't work smart."

Leland Irving had an easy game in the Everett goal. He was required to make just 10 saves.

Lucas Bloodoff scored the lone goal for the youthful Rockets, who fell to 0-3. Kristofer Westblom finished with 25 saves in goal for Kelowna.

Kelowna was the premier franchise in the WHL the past four seasons, but the Rockets are now in full rebuilding mode, and that was in full evidence Friday night. Kelowna took penalty after penalty after penalty, presenting Everett with 15 power plays. The Tips took advantage on just two of them, but by constantly being on the penalty kill the Rockets were never able to build any momentum.

"Kelowna's a much younger team than we've played the last two or three years," Becanic said. "Maybe for some of their guys it was a little intimidating to come into an environment like tonight where there was a lot of energy and a lot of noise.

"The way it's being called now you get behind the eight-ball early and you get tired, so mistakes happen and it seems that once you get into that rhythm of taking penalties you can't get out of it."

However, Kelowna coach Jeff Truitt was not about to use the team's youth as an excuse.

"It's a little bit of a change, but the expectations are there," Truitt said. "We're not letting anybody off the hook. The quicker we learn these things, the better we're going to get sooner. Yeah, we're going to learn by mistakes, but discipline can't be one of them."

Vartovnik, a 17-year-old rookie from Slovakia, scored both his goals in the second period, with Hamill setting up both. Everett was ahead 2-0 when, at 6 minutes, 46 seconds, Jonathan Harty sent a diagonal pass to Hamill at the left post, and Hamill sent it back across the crease for Vartovnik to put into an unguarded net. Then at 16:09, Hamill held the puck and fired it toward the goal as Vartovnik was crashing. The puck deflected off Vartovnik's body and into the net, giving the Tips a demanding 4-0 lead.

"He's been working hard in practice the last couple weeks," Hamill said of Vartovnik. "It's nice to see. He's got Ondrej (Fiala, Everett's Czech left wing) back to help him a little bit with the language and it's helped a lot."

Everett opened the scoring on the power play at 14:19 of the first, Hamill's shot deflecting off Westblom and Gutierrez getting the final touch as the puck was trickling toward the goal. The Tips made it 2-0 three minutes later when, on a five-on-three power play, Beach swept a shot from thee left corner past Westblom at the far post.

Slap shots: Everett defenseman Eric Doyle had to be helped off the ice in the first period after getting rammed into the boards by Myles MacRae. However, Doyle returned in the second. ... Everett used the same lineup it used in its first two games. Center Peter Mueller (at training camp with the NHL's Phoenix Coyotes) and Fiala (knee injury) remain unavailable. ... The pregame ceremonies included an effect where the ice was set on fire at the center circle. ... Kelwona defenseman Tyler Myers had a difficult game, getting called for four minor penalties in a 10-minute span.