Heading towards the Memorial Cup

[Lilaena De'Ville]

WHL, et cetera, begin the playoffs this weekend.

Our Portland Winterhawks have had a topsy-turvy season, what with going from 1st place in the US division to having an 11 game losing streak that landed us in last place, and now we've struggled back to 3rd place. We're facing the Seattle Thunderbirds, our oldest rivals, in the first round of the playoffs.

If we manage to take the series, and advance, it'll be the first time in three years we haven't been knocked out of the playoffs in the first round.

Of course, in the 2nd round we'll most likely face the Vancouver Giants who have made Portland their bitch all year. :uhoh

[JMK]

I love the Memorial Cup tournament. It's one of the best junior sports tournaments out there.

On a related note, a guy from the Quebec Remparts scored 7 goals and 4 assists in a single game this past weekend. How stupid is that?

[Lilaena De'Ville]

That's crazy stupid!

:p

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Winterhawks win! Hawks win!

After being knocked out of the 1st round of the WHL playoffs five years in a row the Portland Winterhawks have finally won a Game 7 (they lost the last four 1st round Game 7s, including a rally from being down 3-0 in the series last year against the Everett Silvertips). We beat down the Seattle Thunderbirds and their 20 yr old goalie Bridges with our rookie goaltender Kurtis Mucha. He’s only 16!

Seattle’s captain (a 2004 draft pick for the Phoenix Coyotes) scored a natural hat trick in the 1st period, and for the Portland fans that had made the trip to Seattle on a Wednesday it seemed like they were in for a VERY long and depressing ride home. With the score 0-3 Seattle, and after losing their chance to win the series at home on Tuesday, it seemed like the Hawks might just fall apart.

Less than a minute into the 2nd period, one of our defensemen, Lenny Thunderchild, took a VERY high hit against the board (they actually showed the replay and the Seattle player’s feet were at least a foot and a half off the ice) and had to be taken off by the trainer, with either a dislocated shoulder or perhaps a broken collarbone. Since he was one of the few defensemen we had that weren’t creating breakaways for Seattle or turning it over in front of our own net, it was a tough pill to swallow. Then, possibly 35 seconds later the whistle blows play dead again, and Kyle Bailey (about to sign a pro contract) is down on the ice. They never show the replay, but apparently he caught his skate in the boards as he was trying to turn and snapped his ankle. Initially it looked like a knee injury, because it appeared that his leg was twisted around and sticking out at an odd angle, and there was the rumor that he’d suffered multiple compound fractures to his leg, but the on site doctor told my husband after the game that it was an ankle injury, he was taken straight to the hospital, and he didn’t know if he’d be able to play again. Ever.

He’s a fan favorite, and basically the heart of the Winterhawks, so the loss of Bailey seemed like the end of everything. The score was 1-3, Seattle, at this point (I believe), and the Winterhawks potted another goal before the 2nd period ended to bring the game within one. We tied it up in the 3rd, while our 16 yr old goalie and our defensemen tightened up to keep Seattle from scoring, and then about 13 minutes into the first overtime of the series we scored to win it!

One of the most incredible games ever, and certainly the most emotional win.

Now the Winterhawks are into the second round where they face the 1st seed Vancouver Giants. You know the Miracle on Ice from the 1980 Winter Olympics? If we beat Vancouver that’s exactly what it would be like. We played them 6 times in the regular season, and lost all six. I think we scored on them about 3 times total. And with the injuries racking up, we’re not able to play with all of our weapons, which will hurt us as well.

But no one cares. We won!

[JMK]

Ahhh, there's nothing like a game 7 in hockey. :)

Glad you enjoyed it!

[Katarina Gordislava]

Watching a potential career-ending injury sucks though. :(

[JMK]

Yeah, it is very scary.

I remember watching a Canadiens game several years ago when Trent McCleary took a slap shot to the throat. It crushed his larynx and he was laying on the ice unable to breathe. Once he realized that his throat was probably crushed he got up clutching at his throat. A couple teammates, who were probably confused (because this had NEVER happened before to anyone) helped him to the dressing room, but he collapsed before getting there. The team's doctor sits in the first row, and he performed an emergency tracheodomy on the spot. McCleary was minutes away from death, literally. He hasn't played a game since.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

His injury is this: dislocated his ankle, broke an ankle bone, popped the tendon/ligament that keeps your tibia and fibia together at the bottom, and fractured both those bones at the bottom.

Owch.

On a happier note, we split the series with the Vancouver Giants, so we're for sure playing 5 games of this series. Our 16 yr old goalie got a shut out in game 1! We had 13 shots on net, the Giants had... 41 shots. Michael Sauer, one of our 4 (four) defensemen left played 52 shifts that night!!

We called up a 15 yr old defensemen from our list to help out until we can maybe get another defensemen off the IR list.

[JMK]

41-13 was the shot difference? Wow.

I hate to say it, because the Canadiens have been the beneficiary of great goaltending for years, and it continues this season with Cristobal Huet, but when you get outshot like that and your goalie has to stand on his head like that, boy is it hard to say that your team deserved to win.

But that's why they play the games. :)

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Ha - of course we deserve to win, we're the underdog. :)

Two games at home this week, so we'll see how it goes. The Vancouver Giants are really a great, all around team - in game two they won 1-7 (we actually had more scoring chances in game 2, but our defensemen [all five of them] were tired from the night before) and 15 of their players had points in that game. They have a killer forecheck, and great depth on the bench.

We have two of our better defensemen out with injuries, but hopefully one will be ready to play on Wednesday's game 3.

Honestly, I didn't expect us to even win one game in this series - but now that we have I know we can go all the way. ;)

[Lilaena De'Ville]

A very frustrating overtime loss tonight at home. :x

Can't let Gilbert Brule get behind you on the blue line - a breakaway in overtime for the best player in the WHL is never a good thing.

Couldn't have asked our goalie to do more - we only logged 2 shots on net in overtime, the Giants had 10. Bad timing on line changes (i.e. every time we got into the attacking zone... change the line!), and a lack of obvious offensive effort made us our own worst enemy.

We did rack up 3 goals though, which matches our regular season total against the Giants (in 6 games played). :lol

[JMK]

I know it's a lot to ask for 15-18 year old kids, especially when playoff pressure is already high, but couldn't they have made sure that when Brule gets hops over the boards someone on the bench and someone on the ice is responsible for making everyone aware of that.

Losing in OT hurts at any point, but knowing that you were right there and lost because you let the one person you should have been looking out for beat you, that hurts a little bit more.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

It really was horrible - there's nothing worse than losing in overtime when you HAD the game - we were leading Vancouver 1-0 at the end of the first, 2-1 at the end of the second, and then they tied it up in the 3rd for a 3-3 tie... We just weren't all there during the overtime for whatever reason, and it showed.

Amazingly enough, this was Brule's first goal against Mucha in the playoffs.

The best part about this playoff run is seeing the Portland Trail-Blazers be relegated to the bottom of the Sports front page in the Oregonian, while the Winterhawks enjoy some big headlines for once. :D

[JMK]

The Jailblazers? Let them stay at the bottom where they belong!

[Lilaena De'Ville]

EX-actly!

They've barely one 21 games this season, while Portland's other two teams are both in the playoffs: the Winterhawks and the LumberJax, our expansion NLL team.

[Sansa]

We're now down 3-1 in the series, and facing elimination on Sunday night. ^_^;

The Hawks came out all cyclinders firing in the 1st and we had 20 shots to the Giants' 8 in the 1st, which is incredible. However, in the 2nd and 3rd the Hawks were flat and then the referee Andy Thiessen was HORRIBLE (matching calls when he should have just called the first, calling charging when one of our guys knocked into the goalie when he was OUT of the crease scrambling for the puck, missing some blatant diving)... his games always get out of control because he's terrible at what he does. I hope I never see him as a ref again. One of our Euros, Stanislav Balan, was getting raped by the defense (arms around his head and then the Giants player practically picked him up by his head and threw him on the ground and landed on top of him) and the ref matched them with roughing penalties! wtf! If someone was trying to screw my head off I'd sure as heck try to get him off me too. But I guess Balan was just asking for it. :rolleyes

Our coach even chucked waterbottles at him from the bench after the game, which was fantastic. Mike Williamson is a pretty even tempered guy but Thiessen didn't go talk to him ONCE during the game, and I'd do the same in his position - take the fine and make a point.

I'm not saying we lost because of the referreeing, but it HELPED us lose. If we could just put three periods together like we did that first one last night we could win the series. We had the Giants back on their heels. >D

Score: 3-1 Giants, just like the series.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Ok, I haven't posted an update in a while because I was sort of mad that the Winterhawks got knocked out in game 5 in Vancouver (I was there to watch every painful minute of it) in a shutout. Kurtis Mucha kept us in the game until the end, keeping the score 0-1 Giants with about a million saves, until Brule got a breakaway at the end of the 3rd and scored on him.

Mucha ended up on his face on the ice trying to block it, and he just lay there for a moment as the Vancouver crowd celebrated. I knew how he felt. The team was playing like our goaltender was the only one who wanted us to win the game. :cry

Anyway, the Giants have gone on to play the Everett Silvertips, Enemy NUMBER 1 here in Portland, and I am proud to say that the Giants have swept the Silvertips in Round 3, complete with 3 (three) shutouts.

At least we put up a fight, the Silvertips went down like the losers I know they are. ;) Plus, the Giants are the Western Conference Champions for the first time ever and now move on to their first Western Hockey League Finals. And the Silvertips don't get another banner!! HA! Take that annoying Everett fans who like to throw stuff and make noise but know nothing about hockey! >D

:mischief