Thursday notes . . .

Former WHL goaltender David Reekie has been named the USHL’s goaltender of the year. Reekie, 20, left the WHL for the USHL’s Lincoln Stars early this season. He put up a 23-10-4 record with a league-leading 2.01 GAA, a .935 save percentage and six shutouts. Reekie, who is from Saskatoon, also was named to the USHL’s first all-star team. Oh, and did I mention that he also scored a goal. . . .
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Steve Ewen of the Vancouver Province has dug up an interesting tidbit, as he often is able to do, involving the Vancouver Giants. D Bronson Maschmeyer was inserted into the Giants’ lineup Wednesday for Game 3 of their series with the Spokane Chiefs. For Maschmeyer, it was his WHL debut. Ewen reports that Maschmeyer’s sister, Brittaney, is a 19-year-old defenceman at St. Lawrence University in Canton, N.Y. . . . Not only that, but Brittaney, in 2003-04, played for the Fort Saskatchewan, Alta., Rangers, a bantam team whose roster also included F Mitch Czibere and D Brent Regner, both of whom now play for the Giants. . . . “To think that I’m playing with those guys now is crazy, since they played with my sister back in the day,” Maschmeyer, 16, told Ewen. . . . The Giants and Chiefs meet in Game 4 in Vancouver on Friday night. The Chiefs hold a 2-1 lead. . . . Game 5 is in Vancouver on Saturday. . . .
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The Tri-City Americans are at home Friday night with their first chance to finish off the Seattle Thunderbirds. . . . The Americans won 3-2 in overtime in Seattle on Thursday to take a 3-1 lead in the series. . . . LW Colton Yellow Horn, who scored the PP winner in Game 4, has four goals in the series, all of them with the man advantage. . . . Tri-City, which was 4-for-30 on the PP in a first-round sweep of the Kamloops Blazers, is 9-for-19 in four games with Seattle. . . . Should the Thunderbirds stay alive with a victory, Game 6 would be Saturday in Seattle. . . . Seattle D Thomas Hickey, who suffered a concussion in the second period of Game 1 and hasn’t played since, is listed as probable for Game 4. Of course, the Thunderbirds said he was cleared to play in Game 2 and that they held him out as a precaution. . . . Seattle also lost F Prab Rai in Game 4 with an undisclosed injury.