Ice have Tigers by the tail

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Ice win three; can still move up standings

by Jeff Bromley

For the 11th straight season the Kootenay Ice are in the 2009 WHL playoffs. They’re also in the heads of the Medicine Hat Tigers, winning their seventh straight against their Central Division rivals to sweep the season series 6-0 with a 5-2 dumping of the Tigers Sunday night at the Rec Plex.

The Ice accomplished two of their key goals in a three-win weekend starting Friday with a win over the Rebels in Red Deer that put them into the post-season where they can finish no worse than seventh, while the weekend trifecta also ensured the club would finish better than .500 for the 10th straight season. As an added bonus 18-year-old Steele Boomer returned to the line-up after missing 25 games after suffering his second concussion of the season in Edmonton January 2. After some controlled minutes in game one of the weekend in Red Deer Boomer broke free of the reigns and potted a goal Saturday night and added two assists Sunday, garnering first star honours on both nights. “It wasn’t bad,” offered Boomer of his goal and two assists over the weekend to restart his season. “Once I was back and cleared the coaches really pushed me to get into shape. It’s hard to come back after such a long time off and I never really expected this but I’m just happy to have an impact.”

An impact indeed as the Edmonton product keyed a huge swing in momentum Sunday night. After taking a 1-0 lead on Kevin King’s 21st of the season the speedy Tigers tied it three minutes later on a four-on-three power play in which Tomas Kundratek was left all alone in the slot in front of Ice goaltender Todd Mathews. He beat Mathews stick-side for his fourth of the season to send the two clubs tied at one into the first intermission. Some continued pressure and some stellar goaltending by Mathews kept Kootenay in the game before Boomer stripped Tiger d-man and Cranbrook product Jace Coyle at the Ice blueline, sped away on a 2-on-1 with Drew Czwerwonka feeding the 16-year-old a perfect saucer pass, enabling him to notch his 13th on the season and a 2-1 lead at the 10:59 mark that the Ice would never relinquish. Andrew Bailey would add two goals in the third along with Boomer setting up another – this time it was an Ian Barteaux’s blast to make it 4-1 – before the Tigers would get a lucky one from behind Mathews net that deflected off his defenseman and into the net on Medicine Hat’s lone shot in a period they were out-shot 20-1.

Ice head coach Mark Holick was pleased with the weekend’s result. “We’re proud of our guys,” said Holick after the three win weekend. “We had a good weekend. We talked about some goals that we wanted to accomplish if we can continue this, who knows? Maybe we can finish fourth and maybe we host the first two. I think we’ve got hotel rooms booked in every city in the top seven, so where it ends up, it ends up.”

Where they’d love to end up is opposite the Medicine Hat Tigers, who the Ice beat in five games in the opening round of the playoffs last season and who they ran the table with this season. It could still happen, though there’s a few things that have to happen first. If the Tigers win their final game, giving them 81 points, and the Broncos lose all three of their final games while Kootenay has to win all three of theirs, all, of course, in regulation.

The only thing they do know is that the Ice won’t finish eighth and will avoid the Calgary Hitmen in the first round. “Oh, we’d love to play them,” said Ice captain Andrew Bailey who notched his 26th and 27th goals of the season in Sunday’s 5-2 win. “Going back to last year we’ve had a lot of success against them. We match up well with them. They’re smaller and they way we work and the physical type of game we play, we’d match-up really well.”

Quick Hits – Kootenay faced the Edmonton Oil Kings in Edmonton Wednesday. They’ll finish the season with a home-and-home series with the Lethbridge Hurricanes, who are three points back of the Ice… Saturday’s regular season finale will feature a tail-gate party to begin in the parking lot of the Rec Plex at 5PM… Bailey sits with the team lead in goals with 27 and will need three more to avoid the first season in the club’s history that there wasn’t a player with at least 30 goals… The club’s other key injured players are also on the mend. Goaltender Nathan Lieuwen, who has missed 18 games following the weekend due to a concussion, is now listed as day-to-day as is rookie D Tyler Vanscourt (shoulder) who missed 20 games. Both are now going looking to improve on their conditioning in order to get back into the lineup. C Dustin Sylvester is listed at 2-3 weeks after suffering a broken ankle right after Christmas and has missed 31 games.