Column

From The Daily News of Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2007 . . .

With apologies to the late, great Jimmy Cannon, nobody asked me but . . .
x The Kamloops Blazers paid a price Monday for their performance in a
home-opening 2-1 loss to the visiting Chilliwack Bruins on Friday.
They ran the Interior Savings Centre stairs while wearing equipment. They
had what best can be described as a stiff practice that included a lot of
one-on-one battles.
Dean Clark, the Blazers’ general manager and head coach, wasn’t at all
thrilled with what he saw Friday. He felt the Bruins dictated the play,
something that isn’t acceptable on the Blazers’ home ice.
“And we need to be mentally tougher,” Clark said.
How tough was the practice”
Sophomore right-winger Juuso Puustinen said it was the toughest one he’s
been through in his time here.
x The Blazers are two games into their 2007-08 WHL regular season.
After one game, you were asking: Where were the Blazers?
After two games, you were asking: Where were the fans?
The answer to the first question lies in some numbers from the exhibition
season — 6-1, 7-1, 44-15.
The first was the Blazers’ record in the silly season. The second was the
score of an exhibition game played in Abbotsford in which the Blazers beat
Chilliwack. The third was the shots on goal, in Kamloops’ favour, in that
game.
Put it all together and you come to realize how it was that the Blazers lost
to those same Bruins in Friday’s home-opener.
The Blazers, it says here, are going to be just fine this season. Oh, there
still is some fine tuning that needs doing — for starters, an experienced
forward who could supply a bit of offence would fit in nicely. And they are
going to have to watch their hat sizes, as they proved Friday.
But, hey, it’s early.
As for the attendance, well, Friday’s opener drew the second-smallest crowd
(4,844) in the history of the facility, which opened in time for the 1992-93
season.
The second game of the weekend drew 4,314 fans, the sixth-smallest home
crowd since the fall of 1993.
Still, the Blazers are 367 fans ahead of their attendance after two games
last season when Games 1 and 2 drew 4,610 and 4,181 fans respectively.
x It’s not unfair to suggest that the Blazers’ biggest question mark going
into the opening weekend hovered over goaltender Justin Leclerc, 18, like a
bunch of gnats. Acquired from the Lethbridge Hurricanes in the days leading
up to training camp, Leclerc, a Saskatoon native, was coming off a so-so
season after being considered one of the top 16-year-old goaltenders in the
country in 2005-06.
Two games into the season it’s fair to say that Leclerc more than answered
the questions. He appears to be back from wherever he was — and he was
terrific in practice Monday, too.
He didn’t see a lot of rubber — only 37 shots in the two games, which is 10
shots per game fewer than he tasted last season — but he was more than up to
the task.
Despite the lighter work load, he didn’t appear to have any concentration
problems. In other words, not once was he caught checking out the crowd.
What was most impressive about his game was that he never once gave up on a
puck and the result of that was three or four superb second saves on plays
that easily could have resulted in goals.
And in games as tight as these two were that might have been disastrous.
x Missing from Monday’s practice were defencemen Keaton Ellerby, Mark
Schneider (wrist) and Darcy Huisman (concussion).
Ellerby, who had what can only be described as a hectic summer, has been
given three days off. “He looked like he didn’t have any energy in either
game,” Clark said.
Schneider is to get the cast off his left wrist today. He should skate this
week and could play by mid-October.
Huisman has been symptom-free for 48 hours, so will be back skating this
week and should be ready to play Sunday against the visiting Portland Winter
Hawks.
x Don’t forget that Sunday’s game begins at 6 p.m.
x Don Hay’s Vancouver Giants won their first two games, in Portland and
Everett. The Giants visit Interior Savings Centre four times this season,
the first one Oct. 27.
Hay and Everett Silvertips head coach John Becanic were fined $500 apiece by
the WHL on Monday for their teams’ antics late in the Giants’ 5-2 victory
Saturday in Everett. There were four fights in a 14-second span.
x Former Brandon Wheat Kings owner Bob Cornell was seriously injured in a
car accident near Green Bay, Wis., on Monday morning.
Details are sketchy, but it’s believed that Cornell, who lives in Brandon
and had been in Green Bay for Sunday’s NFL game between the Packers and San
Diego Chargers, was driving a car that was carrying three passengers.
Cornell, who has cared as much as anyone for junior hockey for a long, long
time, is in intensive care in a Green Bay hospital.