Thursday, March 27, 2008

Yay Tigers Win

Losing 3 straight games being down 3-0, it didn't look like we were gonna see another game at the arena.

From the comments in the paper it sounded like Kootenay's coach was pretty mad that his team didnt win, and had to take another trip into Medicine Hat.

Down 3-1 is tough, but now we've shown we can win in kootenay. When the tigers had a 3-0 lead I was thinking I bet Kootenay will Tie it up. Kootenay eventually scored a goal with their goalie pulled to come within one goal of a tie game on a 6on4 powerplay late in the game.

When I heard Wacey Hamilton missed a chance at the open net, I had to turn my radio off, and pray that the game 2 ending wouldn't happen all over again. Luckily for the tigers Brennan bosch scored an empty netter.

GAme 5 back in the hat. One more chance at watching our home boys play.

Here's to hoping for a 4 game winning streak and possibly more...Cheers!

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Kootenay Curse Continues

Time to hire a witchdoctor?

Listened to the game on the radio last night. From what I heard it sounded like the tigers put forth a valiant effort, but just couldn't bury their chances. The Tigers gave Kootenay two 2 man advantages, and Kootenay was able to score during one of them.

Kootenay has a chance to go for the sweep tomorrow. The tigers need to be the one that scores the first goal. So far every game Kootenay has had a lead early on. The tigers have scored the first goal in only 3 of their 9 total games played this year.

The tigers haven't lost in the first round of the playoffs, since they became their run as a dominant team in the league. They made it into at least the second round in each of their last 5 years.
Its do or die tomorow.

Friday, March 21, 2008

Tiger lose 5-2 IN Playoff Opener

Just like last year the tigers stumbled out of the gate in the first game.
Maybe a bit nervous? maybe too excited? Whatever it was Kootenay came ready and it only took them 6 minutes and 45 seconds to build a 2-0 lead.

Kootenay's forecheck was systematically sound, forcing the young tigers D-men to cough up the puck too many times. The tigers iced the puck far too often. I think Jerrid Sauer iced it 5 times and 3 of them were pretty unnecessary. When you have last change in the playoffs, icing the puck can be deadly, as it lets the opposition coach gets his matchups on the ice.

Kootenay did an excellent job of hanging back, waiting for a good pass, or waiting for a trailer, and their Defenceman were joining the rush at perfect times, and pinching in at the blueline at perfect times, often halting a tiger rush. At some points the tigers looked confused as to what to do in their own zone. I believe Kootenay also hit 3 or 4 posts. They created a bunch of good scoring chances, something the tigers have to fix. I noticed at a distance kootenay's shooters went high blocker side quite often, and were shooting across the ice when they had the chance.

It took until the 8 minutes mark when Wacey hamilton Knocked Eric Frere on his butt twice and laid a solid hit on Zach Sim to wake the tigers up. The building came alive and the tigers started to get some offense going. A few minutes later Hamilton scored the first tigers goal that ricochet off the backboard and hit Lazuruk's skate and went in the net.

A 17 yr old shouldn't have to be the one to put the team on his back and say hey, lets get the lead out.

Only 2 d-man came to play tonight for the tigers and that was Bendfeld and Isherwood, the rest had off nights. But the defense was only half the problem, too many times the forwards coughed the puck up just inside the blueline giving Kootenay odd man rushes.

Kootenay's goaltender Kris Lazaruk didn't have a strong game, he was giving up juicy rebounds, but kootenay's defenceman did a nice job of clearing them.

If you take away the bad start its a 3-2 game going into the third. I dont remember seeing colton grant on the ice for the last 2 periods? I think i may also have seen another minor injury/bruise to a tiger player but I'll keep that info hidden. I hope the Hamilton line starts tomorrow, to create some energy right off the bat.

It also appears as if tonights game wasn't a sellout. The whl page has attendance at 3903. The whl page however is sometimes wrong. The building looked pretty full, however their were quite a few sellers at the front door.

Monday, March 17, 2008

Regular season Head2Head stats

Here is a brief summary on points/pm/(+/-)/goals/assists/Games Played, between the Hat, and Kootenay...more stats tomorow


Bretton Cameron ---3g, 2A=5PTS---(+5)---7PM---6GP
Linden Vey-------- 1g, 2A=3PTS---(+1)---4PM---4GP
Cody Carlson ------1g, 2A=3PTS---(+1)---6PM---6GP
brennan Bosch -----3G, 4A=7PTS---(-1)---6PM---6GP
COlton Grant ------1g, 1A=2PTS---(0)----2PM---6GP
Daine Todd-------- 4G, 1A=5PTS---(-2)---4PM---6GP
yashar Farmanara-- 1G, 3A=4PTS---(-3)---6PM---6GP
Shayne Brown------ 0G, 1A=1PTS---(+1)---2PM---3GP
Jordan Bendfeld--- 0G, 3A=3PTS---(+3)---4PM---6GP
tyler Ennis--------3g, 3A=6PTS---(-1)---4PM---6GP
Mark Isherwood---- 0g ,3A=3PTS---(-1)--16PM---6GP
Mikeal Ah'len -----2G, 0A=2PTS---(-1)---2PM---4GP
Patrick Kozyra ----0G, 1A=1PTS---(-1)---6PM---6GP
Travis DUnstall ---0G, 2A=2PTS---(+1)---6PM---4GP
Sean Ringrose -----0G, 2A=2PTS---(-1)---0PM---6GP
Josh Koper-----------------------(+2)---2PM---2GP**
Mathew Konan---------------------(+1)---0PM---3GP
Trevor Glass---------------------(+2)---0PM---2GP
John Stampohar-------------------(+1)---0PM---3GP
Jerrid Sauer---------------------(-2)---0PM---6GP
Jordan Hickmott------------------(+1)---0PM---4GP
Wacey Hamilton-------------------(-2)---7PM---3GP
Thomas Frazee--------------------(0)----2PM---2GP
Scott Wasden---------------------(0)----0PM---2GP**

Fights:
Mark Isherwood vs Steele Boomer
Mark Isherwood vs Andrew Bailey
Bretton Cameron VS Jason MacDonald
Wacey Hamilton vs Zach Sim
Ian Beartaux Vs no-one


Stats
Kootenay

Paul Kurceba---------1G,1A=2PTS---(-4)---6PM---6GP
Brayden McNabb-------1G,0A=1PTS---(+1)---6PM---6GP
Eric Frere-----------0G,0A=0PTS---(-1)---0PM---3GP
Zach Sim-------------0G,0A=0PTS---(-2)---15PM--3GP
Michael Strickland---2G,0A=2PTS---(-2)---4PM---6GP
Matt Fraser----------1G,0A=1PTS---(-1)---0PM---6GP
Dustin Sylvester-----2G,6A=8PTS---(+4)---0PM---6GP
Tylan Stephans-------0G,2A=2PTS---(+1)---8PM---6GP
Steele Boomer--------1G,1A=2PTS---(-1)---5PM---6GP
kevin King-----------1G,1A=2PTS---(+1)---4PM---5GP
Arnaud Jacquemet-----3G,3A=6PTS---(+3)---2PM---6GP
Josh Gionfriddo------0G,0A=0PTS---(-1)---0PM---1GP
Ben Maxwell----------0G,2A=2PTS---(+1)---2PM---1GP
Andrew Bailey--------1G,2A=3PTS---(-2)---11PM--6GP
Steve Dasilva--------4G,6A=10PTS--(0)----2PM---6GP
Chad Greenan---------1G,3A=4PTS---(+3)---8PM---6GP
Ian barteaux---------0G,1A=1PTS---(+3)---21PM--6GP
John Negrin----------0G,4A=4PTS---(-1)---2PM---6GP
Paul McDonald--------0G,0A=0PTS---(0)----11PM--2GP**
Jiri Ryzuk-----------0G,0A=0PTS---(-3)---0PM---4GP
Jason McDonald-------0G,0A=0PTS---(-1)---2PM---2GP**
Joe Antilla----------0G,0A=0PTS---(-3)---0PM---4GP
Jordan Wilkins-------0G,0A=0PTS---(-1)---0PM---1GP
Kris Foucault--------0G,0A=0PTS---(-2)---2PM---2GP

***Steve dasilva scored 5 of his 10 points in the last meeting vs the Tigers
***Ice overager Ben Maxwell has only played 1 game vs the tigers this year where he recorded a 2 point night
**=No longer with the team.


Early season games between these teams don't really mean anything. Both teams have changed a couple players, and have improved since then. The only game you can realistically compare the 2 is from their last meeting, which kootenay won 6-4, coming back from a 3-1 deficit. Kootenay has 2 real dangerous scoring lines capable of scoring big goals, scoring from their 2nd line has dipped a bit in the past couple weeks.

My prediction is tigers in 7. These two teams have been pretty much been neck and neck all year. Kootenay wins have been 1 goal games., but they have managed to steal 2 games from the tigers Home Ice. Goaltending has been fairly equal. Ryan Holfeld has only seen limited playing time against the ice this year. In one game he played well, the other game he got lit up. Lezaruk for kootenay was also lit up in his last game vs the Hat.

I'm giving the tigers the edge based on experience, and based on they play just as well on the road as on Home-Ice this year. Realistically this series is too close to call. Kootenay has been the Tigers kryptonite in the past, but I hope we can develop an immunity to it!

P.S I would bet that the Russel brothers have some sort of bet on the outcome.

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Tigers Get Home Ice advantage

Well we got a little help from Calgary tonight. Calgary demolished the Ice 6-1 in Calgary.

I was a bit surprised that calgary dressed their full lineup, only resting their star players once they had a 5-1 lead.

The Hitmen also set a new whl attendance record at 19,305, which is a few fans above capacity.

So games #1 and #2 will be played Friday and Saturday Night in Medicine Hat, as per what Bob Ridley said on the radio.

#1 – Kootenay @ Medicine Hat; Friday, March 21 (7:30pm MST)
#2 – Kootenay @ Medicine Hat; Saturday, March 22 (7:30pm MST)
#3 – Medicine Hat @ Kootenay; Tuesday, March 25 (7:00pm MST)
#4 – Medicine Hat @ Kootenay; Wednesday, March 26 (7:00pm MST)
#5 – Kootenay @ Medicine Hat; Friday, March 28 (7:30pm MST) If Necessary
#6 – Medicine Hat @ Kootenay; Sunday, March 30 (6:00pm MST) If Necessary
#7 – Kootenay @ Medicine Hat; Tuesday, April 1 (7:00pm MST) If Necessary
More between the two teams tomorow!

Saturday, March 15, 2008

*Official* Tigers will play Kootenay in round 1

The only thing that matters now is if Kootenay wins or looses against Calgary tomorrow. Kootenay has to win to steal Home-ice advantage away.

Calgary has the Conference locked up, and their game on sunday has no meaning whatsoever to themselves. I wouldn't be surprised if Calgary gives a few people like ryan white, karl alzner, and Dan Spence the night off.

I'll list a bunch of regular season head to head stats, my prediction, and other stuff between the 2 teams later on during the week. For right now game sheets between the two teams are posted at the <--- left hand side of the page.

Friday, March 14, 2008

Big 4-3 SO win over lethbridge, and complicated university math

That was a pretty entertaining finish. The tigers held scores of 1-0 and 2-1 before lethbridge came back and scored 2 goals to go up 3-2. With just under 2 minutes to play a shayne brown point shot, trickled over the shoulder of Canes goalie Micheal Maniago. It was a type of shot that may have have missed the net high, but canes goalie partially caught it with his shoulder, and it rolled over into the back of the net to tie it up a 3-3.

The shootout was even more hectic. Tyler Ennis and Zach Boychuk traded goals with thier first shots. Daine todd missed his chance and Mitch Fadden scored on his attempt. Dwight King of lethbridge whiffed on a potentially game winning shootout goal, and Travis Dunstall scored to tie up the shootout. Off to sudden death shootout style.

Dan Iwanski Of lethbridge failed to score trying a deke, giving Mark Isherwood a chance to win it. Isherwood faked a slapper, and went glove but Maniago read him like a book.

5th round had Adam Chorneyko squeakone past glove side on holfeld, and Wacey Hamilton scored stick side on Maniago to keep the shootout alive for the tigers once again.

6th round had hurricane D-man Luca Sbisa rip one over top of the net. WHile Micheal Ah'len did a quick fake and went high glove side to win it for the tigers. Wewoo!

Pretty exciting finish to say the least. I thought the Tigers looked a bit sloppy for parts of the game. The were a few players having really good games, and a few players had off night, or at least "off shifts". Example farmanara wildly swinging his stick after being tripped, knocked down a guy resulting in a hurricane 2 man advantage. Then having it almost killed off and Bosh whiffed on a puck to get it out of the zone, and the Canes scored seconds later. Sort of unlucky, but at least the luck was returned later in the game. The refs took a big flow out of the game calling lots of penalties in the first and second, Imo there were some weak calls, both sides
Lethbridge had a 2man advantage twice.

Tyler Ennis took a big hit in the second or third, and played sparingly the rest of the game, only taking 1 shift on the powerplay in the third. We may or may not see him dressed for tomorrow's game. During a post game interview Jerrid Sauer said Ennis was a little rattled and they were resting him a bit for the playoffs.

The only thing certain in the standings is Moose Jaw will finish 8th in the conference. Still anybody's game on who will face who in the playoffs.

Playoff positioning possibilities

IN a nutshell there are 70 different combinations that can still happen, and we wont know our playoff opponent untill sunday.

Winning in regular time will guarantee Home Ice. However if the canes get 1 point, we could be looking at starting the playoffs on the road, depending on kootenay's games.

TIGER CALLED UP
Former MEdicine Hat Tigesr star Darren Helm was called up and played in his first nhl regular season game thursday march 13 in Detroit. A day after recording a 4point night in the AHL, against the Toronto marlies. He posted 7 minutes of Ice time in 10 shifts. He recorded 1 shot on net. 2 missed shots, and 3 faceoff losses in 3 attempts.



Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Home and Home with lethbridge to close out the season

Kootenay Beat lethbridge tonight.
Moose jaw lost to regina,
swift current beat saskatoon.
Brandon Beat P.A

Either 1 tiger point, or one point lossed from Brandon, or Swift Current secures at least 5th spot.

Kootenay plays calgary twice.
Lethbridge plays us twice and edmonton once.

If lethbridge can manage one win in our home and home series, it means we can no longer catch them, because they have more wins than us.

A perfect world would have the tigers beat lethbridge twice, and have kootenay lose at least once to calgary.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Dunstall sparks tigers with a 4-1 win over Red Deer

I guess being a healthy scratch for the game against calgary was a good thing. Dunstall picked up 2 goals an assist, fought rebel Cullen Morin, and was named the games first star. Hopefully this guy can continue this kind of play.

The win puts the tigers on a 5 game winning streak, 1 point ahead of kootenay, but kootenay has a game in hand.

Scoreboard Watch
Keep your eye on the scoreboard tomorrow and hope the game between kootenay and Lethbridge does not go into overtime. We dont want our close rivals getting 3 points instead of 2!

The absolute worst place we can finish now is 7th. (Yes I'm counting the tiebreaker formula's)
One more point for us or brandon loss or overtime loss, means the worst we can do is 6th place.
2 more points for us or 2 points lossed by moose jaw means the worst we can finish is 5th.

Which means 1 single win for us will lock at least 5th spot.

The Tigers added Brooks Bandit Taylor Gal, 17, to the lineup after the junior A team was eliminated last week from the AJHL playoffs. The Lethbridge native tallied 21 goals and 24 assists in 54 games for Brooks. The former Calgary Hitmen draft-pick was an AJHL all-star this year at left-wing.

Saturday, March 8, 2008

Big 5-2 Victory over Hitmen

Woohoo. The place was rock'in tonight. The tigers came out and played hard for a full 60 minutes. With the loss of Bretton Cameron, wacey hamilton, colton grant, shayne brown, Brennan Bosch, Tyler Ennis, Jordan Bendfeld, Sean Ringrose, Daine Todd, Jerrid Sauer, well pretty much the whole team stepped up thier game and played excellent hockey.

I thought Wacey hamilton in particular really played well.

Karl Alzner must have played 40 minutes tonight, and uncharacteristically took a penalty trying to stop tyler ennis from getting a partial breakaway late in the third, with a straight arm. Brennan Bosch eventually scored on that powerplay, and provided an ever so important insurance marker.

Its nice to see the tigers powerplay start clicken again, they had 1 goal, and 1 goal scored just seconds after, as well as numerous good quality chances.

Ennis with another 3 point night is now only 5 points away from scoring leader Colin Long of kelowna, with 3 games to play.

Playoff Watch:
Kootenay Ice won again, and have earned 18 out of a possible 20 points in their last 10 games.
Kootenay plays calgary twice, and lethbridge once.

Lethbridge beat red deer, and remained tied with us for the 4th spot. However they have 2 games in hand. Lethbridge plays calgary, kootenay, Tigers twice, and Edmonton.

Realistically i think the tigers will have to win their last 3 games to get Home Ice- advantage in the first round. If kootenay keeps winning the Tigers can't let lethbridge get any points in the home- and home series against them.

Friday, March 7, 2008

Ennis Named Player of the Week

Ennis picked up seven points, scoring three goals and added four assists to go with a +4 rating in four games between February 25th and March 2nd, helping the Tigers post a 2-2 record in that span.

For the 5th? season in a row the tigers picked up their 40th win, trouncing the Oil kings 6-3.
Rookie Goaltender Tyler Bunz made his whl debut stopping 23 shots and allowing 3 goals.

I watched him play on shaw tv and it looked like he was fairly calm and had decent positioning.
Even though he is 16, this would be considered his "15 yr old season".

Kootenay, swift current, lethbridge, moose jaw, brandon all have 2 games this weekend, while the tigers only play 1 vs calgary.

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Tigers on shaw cable tv tonight

Tyler Ennis scored his 40th goal of the season last night, congrats Tyler Ennis. He currently sits 4th in scoring. My mouth is watering to see what he can do next year with the tigers already. He has that one move, that slight shake or dip he does that completely messes with the defenders head. I havn't seen him do that for a while but he brought it back last night.

7-0 against the expansion team Oil kings, lets hope the tigers can continue that streak and make it 8-0 this year.

Colton grant has cooled off a bit, but the big line of hickmott/stampohar/vey/frazee have come back to life. They created quite a few chances. Stampohar has shown some hands lately, and hickmott scored a nice goal shorthanded last night.

One person I'd like to see back on the powerplay second unit is Micheal Ah'len. He's capabale of winning battles in the corners and banging home the trash goals, and screening the goalie. Perfect to scoop up a rebound from a jerrid sauer shot on the point.

There was a rumour that medicine hat 6th round draft pick Emerson Etem has been in the house getting a look at what the Tigers have to offer. The scouting news has praised him as possibly the biggest steal of the 07 bantam draft, but he has ncaa recruiters after him as well.

Saturday, March 1, 2008

Line Brawl In P.A sparks a 3-1 win

After a pair of tough losses, the tigers were taking no prisoners tonight.

There were 7 fights including a first period line brawl. It appears that Prince Albert player Dustin Cameron sparked the love festival after dumping a tiger player from behind.
Medicine hat product Cole Penner who plays for Prince Albert fought with tiger Mark Isherwood, prior to the line brawl happening.

Jordan Bendfeld, Jerrid Sauer, and Bretton Cameron were all tossed after the lovefest. Leaving only Brown, Isherwood,carlson,kozyra on Defense. Making matters worse Ridley reported Cody Carlson was injured, but came back to play later in the game.

Stampohar,Hickmott, and Brennan Bosch scored for the tigers, and Ryan Holfeld saved 20 shots for the win. Prince Albert had a goal disallowed near the end of the game. Tigers outshot P.A 41-21.

Hopefully tigers tv shows the brawl when they put up the game highlights up.

Another Note: Jordan Bendfeld had a scrap yesterday against Saskatoon Blades tough Guy Garrett Klotz. NO word on how he did, but usually if a blade wins a fight there are a few blades fans recapping it on some forum or another, so I'm guessing either benny did well, or it was a hugfest.

If more info arrives on the game or fights, I'll try and post it later.