Groenheyde leaves Americans groaning

From The Daily News of Saturday, Jan. 5, 2008. . . .

Of such things are love affairs made.
Goaltender Jon Groenheyde made his first career WHL start one to remember
Friday night as he stopped 33 shots to lead the Kamloops Blazers to a 3-2
victory over the Tri-City Americans, who went into the game with the
league’s best winning percentage (.770).
By early in the third period, most of the 4,818 fans at Interior Savings
Centre were applauding routine stops by Groenheyde. At game’s end, when the
16-year-old from Surrey was named first star, the ovation was resounding.
“Yeah, that was really nice,” Groenheyde said of the reception he received
from the fans.
The victory lifted the Blazers back to .500, at 19-19-1-1, and into a tie
with the Seattle Thunderbirds (17-13-5-1) for seventh place in the Western
Conference.
Groenheyde came within seven minutes of posting a shutout which would have
made his debut that much more magical. The Blazers held a 2-0 lead when
Tri-City right-winger Blair Macaulay came down the left side while
shorthanded and put a shot over the goaltender’s right shoulder.
“Amazing” was all Groenheyde could say when asked about his night.
He had been told Thursday during practice that he would be starting and said
that he got a good night’s sleep.
By game time, he said, he was “very nervous . . . very nervous.”
It took, he said, “the first five or six shots” before “I realized it was
just another game.”
That may be, but, in the end, this game was anything but for the 6-foot-3,
175-pounder. He made numerous terrific stops as the Blazers, for the fifth
game in a row, allowed more than 30 shots.
“There were quite a few (shots) actually,” Groenheyde said. “I wasn’t really
expecting that many because in the preseason there wasn’t as many shots.”
In the excitement of the postgame, he could only remember one of the 33
saves.
“The save at the end. The last shot. The guy came in down the boards . . .
off my blocker, up in the air and I caught it in my glove,” he said, his
eyes shining as he relived the moment.
Groenheyde almost made the Blazers out of training camp, but ended up with
the BCHL’s Merritt Centennials. He returned to the Blazers for two games in
October and backed up James Priestner as starter Justin Leclerc recovered
from an ankle sprain.
Dean Clark, then the Blazers general manager and head coach, chose not to
send Groenheyde back to Merritt, where he had been subjected to a hazing —
half his head had been shaved and he had had to go to school like that.
“They didn’t really like that here and they put me on a new team,”
Groenheyde said. “Dean was really, really choked about that.”
Groenheyde joined the KIJHL’s Columbia Valley Rockies, where he is 6-6 with
a 2.55 GAA and .919 save percentage.
“I didn’t really want to play junior B,” he said, “but, you know, that’s
just the way it goes. You’ve got to play and I’m playing a lot there.”
With Priestner due back from the U-17 World Hockey Challenge today,
Groenheyde is scheduled to return to Invermere on Monday. He goes back
without a shutout but with a victory.
“I was thinking (about the shutout) . . . maybe in the third it just crossed
my mind,” he said with a laugh. “But I wasn’t worried about that; I just
really wanted to get the win.”
With Alex Rodgers out with the flu, Kamloops put Mark Hall alongside centre
Brock Nixon and right-winger Tyler Shattock. And, in the 68th regular-season
game of Hall’s career, he enjoyed his first two-point outing.
He set up the game’s first goal late in the first period by banging
defenceman Mitch McColm off the puck behind the Tri-City net and throwing it
out front from where Sasha Golin banged it past goaltender Kyle Birch, who
was making his seventh start of the season.
“I just finished my check,” said Hall, who will miss tonight’s game in
Kelowna as he attends the funeral of an uncle in Vancouver. “I didn’t feel
what was behind me but it never hurts to put a puck in front of the net so I
just threw it in front and Sasha was there to bang it in.”
Hall gave the Blazers a 2-0 lead 48 seconds into the third period, snapping
home a Brady Calla pass for his second score of the season.
“That was one of my better games,” Hall said. “I played with more confidence
and worried more about the game instead of getting under people’s skin.”
Four minutes after Macaulay’s goal — winger Colton Yellow Horn drew an
assist to run his point streak to 22 games — right-winger Kenton Dulle
restored the Blazers’ two-goal lead, only to have centre Jason Reese cut it
to one at 17:47.
The Americans pressed down the stretch, forcing five faceoffs in the
Kamloops zone. But some stellar work by Nixon in the circle allowed the
Blazers to gain puck possession and play out the clock.
“Kamloops took it to us,” offered Tri-City head coach Don Nachbaur. “For the
most part what we’ve done all season is outwork teams and I thought they
outworked us.”
JUST NOTES: Referee Reagan Vetter gave Tri-City five of eight minors and one
of two majors. . . . The Blazers were 0-for-5 on the power play. . . .
Tri-City, which is at home to the Spokane Chiefs tonight, was 0-for-3 on the
PP. . . . The Blazers had given up at least one power-play goal in each of
their last 17 games. . . . Tom Gaglardi, the Blazers’ majority owner, was in
the house. He won’t see his club play Sunday in Vancouver as he leaves that
morning for a family gathering in Mexico.
gdrinnan@kamloopsnews.ca