Kevin Paul Dupont, in the Boston Globe: “At the risk of alienating some very good, hard-working guys in stripes, sorry, but it was a better game with only one referee. In theory, sure, every garden should be spotless, every weed eradicated. But for those of us who have dabbled in backyard summer veggie gardens, did a few weeds take away from the taste of the tomatoes and zucchini? I'm convinced that the two-ref system, so clean and efficient in intent, was a Martha Stewart invention. And that's not a good thing.” . . .
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F Tomas Vincour of the Edmonton Oil Kings has led Czech Republic back into the top division of the IIHF Under-18 World Championship. The Czechs are 4-0, having outscored the opposition 28-3, and will be awarded gold when the Under-18 Division 1 Group A championship ends Tuesday in Torun, Poland. The Czechs gain promotion to the top division so will play in the 2009 championship which is to be played in the U.S. – in Fargo, N.D., and Moorhead, Minn. Tentative dates are April 9-19, 2009. . . . Vincour is leading the tournament in Poland in scoring, with 13 points, including 11 assists. . . . Team Canada leaves Monday for Europe where it opens play in the top Under-18 tournament in Kaza, Russia, on April 13. . . .
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And now, after Sunday’s lone WHL playoff game, all four second-round series are tied 1-1. The lower seeds all won the openers; the higher seeds came back to even things up in the second games. . . .
In Spokane on Sunday, F David Rutherford had two goals to lead the Chiefs to a 4-1 victory over the Vancouver Giants. . . . The Chiefs finished one point ahead of the Giants so are the Western Conference’s second seed. . . . Rutherford now has three playoff goals. He scored both goals on G Tyson Sexsmith, who billets with Rutherford’s mother, Tracy, in Ladner, B.C. . . . This series has a 2-3-2 format, with the third game in Vancouver on Wednesday. . . . Attendance for Game 2 was 4,705. . . . Sexsmith made 27 saves, eight more than Spokane’s Dustin Tokarski. . . . Spokane, which received the game’s first seven power plays, was 0-for-7 with the man advantage; the Giants were 1-for-3. . . . Rutherford got the game’s first goal at 6:13 of the first period. . . . Vancouver D Jon Blum tied it at 4:20 of the third period. . . . Rutherford got the winner 43 seconds later. . . . F Mitch Wahl and F Levko Koper, into an empty net, also scored for Spokane. . . . Vancouver is 36-10 in playoff games since the start of the 2006 postseason.
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