Regina's up tonight at the Rec Plex followed by the return bill Friday in Regina and Swift on Saturday for Cody Eakin's return. You'd have to think that the six points up over the next three games are crucial if the Ice are going to have a shot at the Central Division. Following the three-games against sub-500 teams the Ice have Medicine Hat, Saskatoon and Kelowna at home and are in Red Deer for a four game set that could define the season up to this point. On the plus-side they should have Boomer and Paulsen back and could have Leach back at some point during that span. Who said February are the dog days of Winter?
For HockeyNow...
Kootenay dumps Giants to keep pace
By Jeff Bromley
Battered, bruised and struggling to keep pace with Eastern Conference elite the Kootenay Ice bottled up those frustrations Saturday night at the Cranbrook Rec Plex and took them out on the Vancouver Giants, dumping the BC Division leaders 5-2 in front of the largest crowd of the season. Proving he was as advertised when he was acquired at the WHL trade deadline forward Cody Eakin scored two goals in the win, including a stellar effort right off of the second period face-off in which he put the Ice up 2-1 seven seconds in, while shorthanded, and set a team record in the process. “What a change of events,” said Ice head coach Kris Knoblauch. “To start the second period and they’re the ones on the power play, it was definitely the turning point.”
“Tonight there wasn’t anything left to chance. We were ready to play. Vancouver’s playing pretty good hockey but we were ready to play. We need to play that way all the time, no matter who we play.”
Knoblauch got what he was looking for in the win; a solid effort by the his club against a top opponent and the all-important two points in the standings but what he wants now is some consistency. The question of which team will show up? The team that dropped needed points against lower ranked teams last week or the national-ranked club that dominated the Giants Saturday, is creeping into the thought process. “It’s frustrating that we don’t have that game ever night but on other side of it, I don’t think you’ll see that come playoffs. On back-to-back nights you won’t see that. It’s pretty hard to believe that we won’t be ready to play but in the regular season we still have a few back-to-back’s left. We’re going to have to address it.”
In the first Eakin deflected Joe Antilla’s point-wrist shot past Giant goaltender Marc Segal to give the Ice yet another early 1-0 lead but the Giants tied it on the power play when Michael Burns jumped on a rebound for the G-Men after being outshot 10-1 to start the game. Eakin’s short-handed marker opened the second and then James Martin’s snap-shot on the power play from the point made it 3-1 for the home side. The Giants got close in the third when import Andrej Stastny potted his sixth past goaltender Nathan Lieuwen but after that it was all Ice as both D Hayden Rintoul and Matt Fraser scored to give the Ice the 5-2 win. “Kootenay played a strong game today and had us back on our heels right from the start, they deserved the win,” said Giant head coach Don Hay.
The crowd of 3476 was the largest of the season to see the Giants for the first time in two years and to see goaltender Nathan Lieuwen speak about his faith following that game on Family Faith night that attracted nearly a thousand extra visitors to the rink. “We’d like to play Kootenay more, obviously a BC team and I’m a fan of playing everybody every season," added Hay. "It’s disappointing that our fans don’t get to see Kootenay every season as they’re a great organization but that’s the rules right now.”
As for the size of the crowd, D James Martin – who scored the game-winner – admitted to being nervous to start the game. “It’s so much better to have a thousand extra people. To see those bottom rows filled-up, it’s a great feeling to play in front of and I was nervous to play at the start of the game, it’d be great to have that every game,” said Martin.
Quick Hits – Following the game Lieuwen and the band OTR entertained a crowd of over a thousand and heard about the 19-year-old Abbotsford product’s trust in his faith that got him through a tough start to his junior hockey career that included a roll-over car accident as a rookie and recurring concussions that plagued him throughout his first three seasons in Kootenay… F Matt Fraser has returned to the lineup after missing two weeks with a concussion. C Steele Boomer is still a week away with an ankle sprain while D Luke Paulsen is day-to-day and D Joe Leach is 2-4 weeks away from returning from a bone chip being removed from his ankle. The club has called up 16-year-old blueliner Jeff Hubic from the Saskatchewan Midget League’s Tisdale Trojans from the balance of the week… Kootenay improved to 34-17-1-2 with the win and sit third in the Eastern Conference and fifth in the overall league standings. Regina is at the Rec Plex Tuesday before the club heads out for a two game road trip back to Regina Friday and in Swift Current Saturday.
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