Ice waxed in Cup opener....

Maybe they're are the underdog....

UPDATE: D Brayden McNabb has been suspended for one game by CHL disciplinarian Bryan O'Neill. That release is here. The Ice will play without their captain for tonight's game against the Mississauga Majors at 5PM. D John Niebrandt will likely check in place for McNabb for his first action since the second round. There's been no update on Attack forward Joey Hishon, the receiver of McNabb's elbow. Owen Sound plays tomorrow night against Saint John.

UPDATE II: I've heard reports of an older female Ice fan who took a stray puck in the head at yesterday's game but wouldn't leave, at the advice of the First Aid Staff at the game, until it was over. Tough fans. If anyone has an update please email me or post below. Hopefully her stoicism might translate to the team tonight.

The Kootenay Ice were shutout in their 2011 Memorial Cup debut against the Owen Sound Attack in a 5-0 game that was close up until the last half of the third before penalty trouble by the Ice turned it into a laugher.

Robby Mignardi got two goals while Berdnikov(Attack's lone import which somebody made note of), Fritsch and Wilson got singles for the Attack in the romp. Jordan Binnington, 17, stopped all 29 shots he faced for the no-no.

Some thoughts....

The most pressing issue facing the Ice is three-fold:

1. Captain Brayden McNabb is facing suspension on the elbow/hit on Attack forward Joey Hishon after the Attack went up 3-0. Hishon was skating through the zone with the puck and McNabb nailed him with an elbow. I've seen the hit only at high-speed but it's clear that his elbow makes contact with the head. I'll post video as soon as I find it. If you listen to either Sportsnet colour guys or analysts, McNabb could or should be gone for awhile, maybe even the tournament. More on that in a bit.

2. They can't score. Kootenay went 0-5 on this night and whiffed on a crucial 5-on-3 early in the game. It set the tone as the club dominated in the second, out-shooting the Attack 15-6 but in terms of quality chances, had few of them.

3. Sunday now presents itself as a do-or-die, must-win game, or at least they'll need help if they don't win agains the host Mississauga Majors.

But don't let the 5-0 score fool you. This one, save for a good chunk of the middle frame when the Ice had Owen Sound on the ropes, was the Nathan Lieuwen show. Hung out to dry on more occasions than I can count Lieuwen's heroics saved this one from being a runaway.

Kootenay couldn't establish much of their defensive game against the Attack and were devoid of any blocked shots and heads-up passes. The physical game by the Ice was non-existent and the game featured more turnovers from this Ice playoff team since early in the playoffs against the Warriors.

Ice coach Kris Knoblauch started with:
Drew Czerwonka, Eakin and King
Fraser, Max Reinhart and Joe Antilla
Benoit, Boomer and Ismond
Pearce, Sam Reinhart and Brendan Hurley.

That morphed into Ismond being placed back on the big unit with Eakin and King and then Hurley taking a regular shift with Boomer and Czerwonka, with varying degrees of success. Really, that' the beauty (or drawback) of this tournament is that because of the three TV timeouts a period, the fourth unit's going to see little ice-time. After a long period of time in the first without a whistle the fourth unit saw a shift or two but that was basically it. Benoit and Pearce sprinkled in to different roles when needed but weren't really effective, as were the second line in Reinhart, Fraser and Antilla. I don't know if drawing in Montgomery as an energy guy in place of Sam Reinhart would do much in terms of depth because of the lack of situations to use them.

The D struggled with the effective forecheck of the (aptly named) Attack and seemed to force passes that either didn't hit the mark or were picked off. Essentially, the Attack turned the tables on the Ice with a neutral zone game that capitalized on turnovers.

Back to the McNabb elbow, Sportsnet has the video evidence here. At full speed it's bad but at slower replay speeds, it's clearly worse. The elbow is up before the hit. Ice forward Cody Eakin tweeted after the game that he didn't think that McNabb would receive a suspension. For his club's sake, he better be right.

This one could be over quickly if the Ice don't regroup Sunday night.