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Thread: 2006/2007 Tiger Articles

  1. #11
    Join Date
    Jan 2005
    Location
    Medicine Hat, Alberta
    Posts
    1,215

    Default Sexmith Gets Giant Start

    Sexsmith gets Giant start

    By DARREN STEINKE

    Tyson Sexsmith will never forget the five-minute cameo he made with the Medicine Hat Tigers.
    On March 5, 2005, Sexsmith, a goaltender with the Vancouver Giants, dressed as a Tigers backup for a home game against the Lethbridge Hurricanes. Matt Keetley was starting in goal at the time, and Sexsmith, then a 15-year-old, was on lone from the Giants because Tigers starter Kevin Nastiuk was recovering from a hand injury.
    The match, won 5-2 by the Tigers, was best remembered for a line brawl which featured a goalie fight between Keetley and then Hurricanes starter Aaron Sorochan with just over four minutes to play in the game. Sexsmith was then put in to mop things up, and had to make one save in front of a raucous crowd.
    “I remember Sorochan calling Keetley to centre ice,” said Sexsmith. “After the game, I remember (Tigers head coach) Willie (Desjardins) just saying to me they were going to be sending me into some tough competition against the Brandon Wheat Kings (because Keetley might have been suspended for the game).
    “It turned out I didn’t have to play the next game. I went in for about the last five minutes of that (Hurricanes) game. The crowd gave me a loud cheer when I made a save.”
    Tonight, Sexsmith will play his second career WHL game at The Arena as his Giants face the Tigers at 7:30 p.m. The match is billed as a heavyweight showdown between the top two teams in the league.
    The Giants lead the WHL with a 15-1-1 mark, while the Tigers are second overall with a 14-5 record. The two teams are also ranked first and second respectively in the CHL rankings and the game will be televised on Shaw.
    Sexsmith has been rotating starts in goal with Giants star Dustin Slade this season. The 17-year-old was the first goaltender selected in the 2004 WHL Bantam Draft, 14th overall.
    This season, he has been living up to his status as a can’t miss prospect. The Priddis, Alta. product is undefeated in eight starts with a 1.46 goals against average and a .919 save percentage.
    On Wednesday the Giants suffered their first regulation loss, falling 4-1 to the Rebels in Red Deer. Sexsmith says his team will be motivated to produce a better result tonight.
    “It is definitely going to be a good game,” said Sexsmith, who played two games as a 15-year-old with the Giants before his Tigers cameo. “I think both teams are going to be ready to go.
    “They (the Rebels) outworked us, and we don’t want that to happen again. We can’t lose two games in a row.”
    For one of the few times this season, it is expected the Tigers will actually be the underdog team for a home game. Giants head coach Don Hay, a coaching legend in the WHL, just laughed off that assessment.
    “Not many teams are favoured in this rink,” said Hay. “This is one of the toughest rinks in the league. We know it is a hostile environment. We are going to have to be prepared.”
    While the match will be the Giants 18th game and the Tigers 19th match, Hay said the hype for the game is deserved. He said his team can feel the excitement of the city over the contest, since they arrived in town early Thursday morning.
    “It is what it is all about,” said Hay. “It is exciting for the fans. It is exciting for the players. It is exciting for the league.
    “When you have number one and number two going against each other, you can feel the excitement in the air. It is going to be a real exciting environment to be in.”
    The one thing the game probably won’t feature is a goalie fight. Sexsmith just laughed at the notion of possibly having the chance to trade punches with 17-year-old Ryan Holfeld, who is expected to start for the Tigers. Associate player Alex Wright is expected to back up Holfeld as Keetley is day-to-day with a knee injury.
    “We will see what happens,” said Sexsmith. “It gets rough out there.”


    -Medicine Hat News
    MEDICINE HAT TIGERS
    http://tigerturf.blogspot.com/

  2. #12
    Join Date
    Jan 2005
    Location
    Medicine Hat, Alberta
    Posts
    1,215

    Default

    Here we go again
    By COLLIN GALLANT
    Mar 13, 2007, 23:07


    So, you’re the Medicine Tigers, and you’ve beaten your brains out in the regular season to finish first in the conference for the fourth straight year.
    Let’s see what’s behind door No. 4.
    It’s the Red Deer Rebels, who’ll come to town for the second time in three years for an opening round series.
    Big, tough, determined, well-drilled — don’t forget determined — Red Deer.
    On the flipside, the Rebels have been safely over .500 in their last two playoff appearances and each time have drawn the regular season conference champion Tigers.
    Neither team was complaining on Monday, choosing instead to focus on the upcoming best-of-seven series which opens Fri., March 23 in the Gas City.
    “That’s the rule, that’s the way it works,” said Tigers head coach Willie Desjardins. “The one thing you know about Red Deer is they have so much character. They always play there best hockey in the playoffs, so there always a tough opponent.”
    The Tigers know from experience.
    The 2005 Rebels posted a 36-26-6-4 record before pushing the No. 1 seeded Tigers right up to the dying seconds of game seven before the Tabbies advanced.
    This year’s Rebs currently sit with a 34-26-4-5 mark with three games remaining.
    After another tight year in the Central Division, Kootenay will host Calgary under current playoff format which sees the first-round matchups drawn along division lines. Remaining teams are re-stacked according to conference standings in the conference semifinals.
    Order the teams one through eight, however, and the No. 5 Rebels would open on the road at No. 4 Calgary (38-24-3-4). The Tigers (51-16-3-0) would host No. 8 Swift Current (32-35-1-2).
    “I have mixed emotions about it,” said Rebels coach Brent Sutter, who sits on the WHL’s executive committee which tweaked the Eastern Conference playoff system.
    Without endorsing the NHL playoff scheme, Sutter did mention the possibility of expanding the wild card system that could move the No. 5 team from one division into the other.
    Currently it only exists in the six-team East Division — where two playoff teams will have worse records than the already eliminated Lethbridge Hurricanes.
    The rule doesn’t work going the other way, but with Edmonton joining the league next fall something will probably be done.
    “There are certain teams that want to keep it inside the division for the first round . . . you have to respect that,” said Sutter. “I’m still a big believer that at the end of the year it should be about wins and losses and winning percentage.
    “You play the whole year to put yourself in the best situation to give yourself the best opportunity to advance in the playoffs. The top teams should always have the capability to play lower seeded teams.”
    On the ice the series should be challenging, to say the least, for both teams.
    Medicine Hat is 6-1-1-0 against Red Deer this season, including two overtime wins.
    The Rebels have already improved 19 points over last year’s total of 58, which they missed the playoffs for the first time in 10 seasons. They have three games remaining, and always seem to be a factor in the playoffs.
    “They’ll try to play us physical and try to run us out of the rink,” said Daine Todd, a native of Red Deer and four-year-veteran with the Tigers.
    “The first round is going to be huge. I think it will get us going and prepare us hopefully for round two.”
    Of note: With his junior A season over, winger Bretton Cameron joined the Tigers on Monday after the Drumheller Dragons were eliminated from the Alberta Junior Hockey League playoffs last week.
    Cameron, a 17-year-old native of Didsbury, scored 18 goals and 35 points in 52 games with Drumheller, and led his squad with three goals in five playoff games.

    -Medicine Hat News
    MEDICINE HAT TIGERS
    http://tigerturf.blogspot.com/

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