KAMLOOPS (2) vs. VICTORIA (7)

[Malc]

By GREGG DRINNAN

The last time the Kamloops Blazers won a playoff series, Marc Habscheid was their head coach.

When the WHL playoffs begin Friday, Habscheid will be out to beat the Blazers because his Victoria Royals will be providing the opposition.

As B.C. Division champions, the Blazers (47-20-5) go into the playoffs as the Western Conference’s No. 2 seed, meaning they have home-ice advantage in the first round. Thus, Games 1 and 2 of the best-of-seven first-round series will be played at Interior Savings Centre on Friday and Saturday nights.

The Royals (24-4-17) finished seventh, 44 points behind the Blazers and will play host to Games 3 and 4 at Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre.

Going in, the Blazers will be heavily favoured, if only because they took seven of eight regular-season games from the Royals, outscoring them 39-21 in the process.

However, Kamloops head coach Guy Charron knows that now isn’t the time for looking back.

“It’s a whole new season and you can’t look back at what you’ve done,” Charron said Sunday afternoon as he took a break from watching video.

That being the case, Charron hardly will be interested in going back to 1998-99, which is when Habscheid guided the Blazers to the WHL’s championship final where they won the first game and then lost four in a row to the Calgary Hitmen.

The rest, as they say, is history and the Blazers have had to wear it around their necks like an albatross over the years.

In the 12 seasons since then, the Blazers have made 10 first-round exits; they didn’t make the playoffs in the other two seasons, including last spring. In those 10 playoff appearances, they have bowed out in four games seven times, left in five games once and exited in six games on two occasions.

In those 10 appearances, they are 5-40. Throw in the end of the 1998-99 final, and the franchise is 5-44 in its last 49 playoff games.

Of course, none of that should matter a whole lot to the present-day players because it’s not like any of them contributed to the first seven or eight years of that run.

That, as they say, was then and this is now.

And now the focus is on the Royals, who are in their first season in Victoria after five winters as the Chilliwack Bruins.

The Royals booked their ticket into the playoffs with a couple of impressive performances last week when they scored 4-3 and 3-1 victories over the visiting Portland Winterhawks, who are one of three teams to finish with at least 100 points.

Charron and associate coach Dave Hunchak spent some of yesterday watching video of those two games. Charron saw a Victoria team that was more impressive than it had been earlier in the season.

“They had some key guys injured,” Charron said in reference to the Royals. “(Defenceman Tyler) Stahl was hurt all season. He’s a pretty solid defenceman. They built some confidence with the way they need to play to be successful against good teams. Obviously, they did some good things against Portland.

“Victoria is banging them every shift and Portland doesn’t deal with that very well. They didn’t respond the same way towards Victoria. If Victoria is going to be aggressive, you have to be aggressive. You have to match hit for hit and they don’t like it either.

“We’re a north-south team. We forced defences to make mistakes. We have to have the same game plan (against Victoria).”
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Kamloops F Chase Schaber, the team captain, missed his sixth straight game with a leg injury Saturday when the Blazers closed out the regular season with a 4-2 loss to the Cougars in Prince George.

Schaber last played March 3, but Charron said he’ll be ready for this weekend.

“We were told by the doctors... it’s the type of injury that if it does reoccur he’ll have to work though it,” Charron said. “It’s not going to endanger him in any way.”

The Royals may be without D Zach Habscheid, who turned 20 on Friday, and F Brandon Magee.
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JUST NOTES: G Cole Cheveldave didn’t make the trip to Prince George with the Blazers as the coaching staff chose to give him the extra rest... F Brendan Ranford led the Blazers in goals (40), assists (52) and points (92). He is the team’s first 40-goal scorer since F Erik Christensen (54) in 2002-03... Bozon led all WHL freshmen in goals (36) and his 71 points left him three behind Vancouver Giants F Marek Tvrdon, who closed with five points in his last two games... Kamloops D Bronson Maschmeyer, who is in his final season, didn’t miss a game in his three seasons with the Blazers, completing a 216-game regular-season run on Saturday.

http://gdrinnan.blogspot.ca/

[CdnSailor]

Shaw Cable will be showing the complete 1st series of Victoria and Kamloops.

http://www.victoriaroyals.com/articl...und-one/119245

[pontcanna]

Here's the proper link for the Shaw coverage:

http://victoriaroyals.com/article/20...shaw-round-one

[CdnSailor]

March 24, 2012

By GREGG DRINNAN
Daily News Sports Editor

So, Tim Bozon, how was your first taste of the WHL playoffs?

"It was really intense from the regular season," offered Bozon, after his two-goal effort had helped the Kamloops Blazers end a 19-game playoff losing streak with a 4-1 victory over the Victoria Royals at Interior Savings Centre.

The Blazers hadn't won a WHL playoff game since March 30, 2005, when they beat visiting Kootenay 3-2 in Game 3 of a first-round series the Ice would win in six games.

The teams will play here again tonight. Game time is 7 o'clock.

The scene then shifts to Victoria for Games 3 and 4 on Tuesday and Wednesday nights.

Tonight's game, as with all games in this series, will be shown live on Shaw TV.

Bozon, who scored 36 goals in the regular season and has been named the Western Conference's rookie of the year, broke a 1-1 tie at 4:13 of the second period when he scored off a nifty back pass by Colin Smith. Bozon later got the game's final goal when a shot by defenceman Austin Madaisky hit a post and then went in off the shaft of Bozon's stick.

"We beat them seven times in the regular season," said Bozon, referencing the fact his side was 7-1 against Victoria, "and this wasn't an easy game.

"The first seven minutes I was surprised. They were coming hard and I had to be prepared to get hit."

Such is life in the WHL playoffs.

In fact, the second period wasn't even over and Bozon, who was born in St. Louis but joined the Blazers from Switzerland, had the look of a warrior, his upper lip swollen and oozing blood after being hit with a puck.

The game started as expected, with the underdog Royals, who finished 44 points behind the Blazers, having brought their physical game with them. Defenceman Jordan Fransoo delivered a couple of hard checks on forwards Matt Needham and Chase Schaber; Victoria forward Taylor Crunk popped Madaisky; defenceman Tyler Stahl knocked down Bozon; forward Robin Soudek checked Aspen Sterzer . . . and on it went.

But the hardest hit of the opening 20 minutes may have belonged to Kamloops defenceman Marek Hrbas, who stamped forward Tim Traber.

After the teams played to a 1-1 tie in a physical first period - Dylan Willick counting for Kamloops and Robin Soudek, via the power play, for the visitors - the Blazers took over in the second. They scored three goals, the last two - from Bozon and Schaber - 47 seconds apart, and were spending more and more time in the offensive zone.

"I thought outside of 10 minutes it could have gone either way," said Victoria GM/head coach Marc Habscheid, referring to a bad spell in the second period. "We did a lot of things we wanted to and we were right there. So we'll try and build off it."

The Royals were outshot 34-27 but did force Kamloops goaltender Cole Cheveldave into a couple of terrific saves, one in particular - a glove save off forward Ben Walker after a crazy bounce off the end glass - brought the crowd of 4,948 to its feet.

"We got in on the play and created some turnovers," Habscheid continued. "I just thought their best players raised their games and I thought our best players weren't our best players."

The Royals are a team that isn't going to score a lot of goals off the rush, choosing instead to harrass defenders into turnovers, then get the puck to the net and create havoc. So the Blazers want to get the puck deep into the Victoria zone and make the Royals bring it back 200 feet. For the most part, Kamloops was successful in doing that.

"We had some jitters in the first period," Kamloops head coach Guy Charron said, "but you also have to give credit to the other team.

"But after the first period, we got to play more the style we needed to play to be successful. From that moment on it went well."

If there was a concern with the Blazers' game, it may be with a power-play unit that was 0-for-4, although Schaber's goal came four seconds after Victoria defenceman Keegan Kanzig was let out of stir following a checking-from-behind minor for a hit on Jordan DePape.

"I think we did some good things," Charron stated. "They had killed 42 of 44 penalties coming into this game, so we knew we were faced with a good penalty-killing team. Schaber's goal wasn't a power play but it resulted form a power-play situation.

"It's more of a concern if you don't win the game and you wish your power play had done something."

JUST NOTES: Victoria G Keith Hamilton stopped 30 shots. . . . Schaber, in his first game after a six-game injury-related absence, also had an assist. . . . Referees Steve Papp and Brett Montsion chose not to hand out penalties from any of a number of last-half scrums. "It's one of those things," Charron said. "It's really up to the officials what they're going to let go and not let go. Overall, I think it was good. We try to preach to our players, 'If you get into a scrum get out of there.' " . . . Kanzig picked up three of Victoria's five minors and also took a late-game misconduct. . . . The Daily News Three Stars: 1. Bozon: The eye of the tiger; 2. Madaisky: Leader on the back end; 3. Hrbas: Tough and strong