game called

[Sput]

From: http://www.princegeorgecitizen.com/


Monday, October 30, 2006
Poor ice puts freeze on game
by JASON PETERS, Citizen staff

The Prince George Cougars and Everett Silvertips — not to mention faithful hockey fans — were unwilling victims in a version of ice follies Saturday night at CN Centre.

With the Cougars leading 2-1 after two periods, players and spectators were forced to endure a 65-minute delay at the start of the third period while building personnel worked to repair a patch of ice behind the Everett goal at the east end of the building. The problem spot was a portion of an in-ice mesh logo that was protruding from the surface. Finally, after the teams and the Western Hockey League agreed conditions were too unsafe for the game to proceed, it was postponed. The Silvertips will be back in town on Feb. 27 for a scheduled game. Saturday night’s third period is set to be played at that time. The WHL, the Cougars and Silvertips will confirm the plans for Feb. 27 early this week. Team records and statistics will not change until the game is completed.

The incident was a black eye for the City of Prince George, which owns and operates CN Centre.

“Certainly it’s disappointing, most of all it’s embarrassing,” said a livid Cougars general manager Dallas Thompson after the game was halted. “It’s totally unacceptable from our side of it.”

The skating surface at CN Centre had to be completely replaced once this season after a Zamboni coated it with oil. On a second occasion, the ice was patched after cleanup from the West of the Rockies rodeo caused damage. Those patches, from one end of the rink to the other, were clearly visible Saturday night.

In the days following the rodeo, a home show was held at CN Centre, as was a Bonnie Raitt concert. Last week, one of the Cougars players told The Citizen “we have the worst ice in the league, no question.”

The Cougars are CN Centre’s major tenant. Thompson’s frustration with the city is building.

“It’s been a disaster with the ice all year, starting from Day 1,” he said. “We’ve mentioned to them that it hasn’t been good, but this is downright unacceptable.

“I want to pass along our apologies to the fans and the Everett organization, who were put through the 65-minute delay,” Thompson added. “I’m getting sick and tired of calling the league and letting them know that we have bad ice or no ice. This problem has to get fixed, soon.”

Counting the 20-minute break between the second and third period, players sat cooling off for almost an hour and a half before the game was finally postponed. After being held hostage for that long, the remainder of the 2,810 fans who had been in attendance filed out to the parking lots.

Everett coach Kevin Constantine, known for his often-fiery demeanour, was surprisingly calm after the postponement.

“It’s kind of hard to have a reaction because it’s just so unusual,” he said.

“Most situations in hockey you can have kind of a plan for because you’ve got history or precedent to know what to do. Our big thing was, we were just concerned about the health of our players. (There were) two concerns obviously — that’s a real tough part of the rink to navigate. You can’t hide from that area, there’s no room. And the other thing was just that our players had sat for so long we were real concerned that coming back without a good warmup and a stretch, that’s when groins get pulled.”

The Silvertips left Prince George after the game, bound for Edmonton. They play in Saskatoon on Wednesday. Constantine said the incident would not affect his team’s travel plans but will have an impact on the return journey to Prince George in February.

“It will affect our next trip up here because we’ll have to play four periods, but we’re more comfortable with playing four periods than we are to put our players back into a bad environment after they’ve sat so long,” he said. “I think that (four-period night) will be the lesser of two evils.”

Eric Hunter, who assisted on a first-period goal by Devin Setoguchi and then scored one of his own later in the period to give the Cats the 2-1 lead, said he was “a little bit in shock” at the game being cut short by substandard ice.

“I’ve never seen anything like it — I don’t think anybody in the building has probably ever seen anything like it,” he said. “It’s a very interesting situation but we have to take it as it lies and take as much out of this game as we can. I thought we played two pretty solid periods and unfortunately we don’t get a chance to finish it off until February.”

Phil Beaulieu, CN Centre’s general manager, did not return Sunday phone calls seeking comment. Diane Rogers, CN Centre and community arenas manager, said in a media release city staff is researching why the logo became exposed.

[Beaner]

Phil Beaulieu, CN Centre’s general manager, did not return Sunday phone calls seeking comment.

Maybe Phil didn't return calls because his voicemal was full after the team published his phone number for fans to lodge complaints.