A Whacky Night in the 'Wack

By GREGG DRINNAN
Daily News Sports Editor
Things were a bit out of whack in Chilliwack on Saturday night.
Justin Leclerc, the Kamloops Blazers’ starting goaltender, noticed in the warmup that the net he was to defend for two periods was off-centre.
“I probably should have dealt with it better,” Leclerc said Sunday, less than 24 hours after he and his mates were beaten 5-4 in a shootout by the host Bruins at Prospera Centre. “Stuff goes wrong in games and part of my job is to battle back from situations like that. The team battled back for me so I feel I should have made a few more saves and we should have easily won the game.
“But, as a goalie, that’s almost a nightmare of a situation.”
During the warmup, Leclerc became aware that the net was about three inches to the left of where it should have been.
“It didn’t feel right,” he said. “It didn’t feel like it was centred and I noticed that there were two markings where it looked like the posts had been at one point.”
As he left the ice after the warmup, Leclerc said he asked one of the on-ice officials to have arena staff check it.
“He kind of laughed,” Leclerc said. “I came into the game and it hadn’t been changed. As the game went on, I realized that for sure the net wasn’t in the middle of the crease. Then I wasn’t sure if maybe the crease was off and the net was in the middle.”
Eventually, after Leclerc spoke with one of the referees and Kamloops head coach Barry Smith became involved, the net was returned to its original markings using short metal pins that are used in practice. But the move wasn’t made until both teams had scored twice.
“Once they put it back where the original markings were everything felt good,” Leclerc said, adding that “it does get into your head that the lines could be off and that’s a huge problem in a rink.”
Leclerc, a 19-year-old from Saskatoon, said he had never experienced such a situation.
“I’ve never noticed that in a game before. That’s something I’m sure I would have noticed if it had happened,” he said. “And even after they moved it back, it was in my head. It was a tough, tough night. I felt like I didn’t have a great game. I felt good going into it. I think I let that stuff affect me too much and I never really came back from it.”
In hindsight, Leclerc said that once he realized something was wrong he should have gone straight to Smith.
“As soon as I realized there was some kind of problem,” Leclerc said, “I should have talked to the refs, talked to Barry . . . at the time, I’d never dealt with anything like that so I didn’t know what process should have been taken to fix the situation.
“I don’t think people quite understood how big a situation it was. When I talked to the refs, they kind of laughed and said they’d look into it at warmups. Then they said they’d wait until the timeout. They even wanted to finish the period so then they could wait to drill new holes.
“To Barry’s credit, he realized it was kind of a big problem and he made sure I was OK with it. Of course, I wasn’t.”
Once Smith was apprised of the situation, he said he spoke with referees Carl Poole and Ryan Thompson. Smith said he told them that “either we switch ends halfway through the period . . . or fix it.”
It was then he said that the decision was made to use the old metal pegs.
“One guy said, ‘We couldn’t drill the hole there because it’s right on a brine line,’ ” Smith stated, adding that arena attendants “were out measuring after the game.”
Smith said he plans on speaking with general manager Craig Bonner and then “we’ll take it up with the league.”
Meanwhile, the Bruins won the game on forward Ryan Howse’s shootout goal. He was the only one of five shooters to score.
Kamloops went with right-winger Kenton Dulle, who hit a post, centre C.J. Stretch, who was stopped by goaltender Marc Friesen, and left-winger Shayne Wiebe, who beat Friesen through the legs but had the puck trickle wide of the net.
“We didn’t play that well but we got a point out of it,” said Smith, whose club had scored a 4-3 overtime victory over the visiting Everett Silvertips on Friday. “The guys worked hard when they got down. The night before was emotional . . . and there was probably an emotional letdown as much as we talked about not letting that happen.
“Still, I’ll give them credit for battling and staying with it.”
The Blazers trailed 4-2 with less than five minutes left in the third period when sophomore right-winger Jimmy Bubnick, who scored nine goals all of last season, struck twice, the first two-goal game of his WHL career. First, he banged in a rebound from the doorstep on a power play at 15:30. Then, at 19:43, he tipped in a point shot by Giffen Nyren.
Wiebe had the Blazers’ first two goals, the first two-goal game of his WHL career. Wiebe, who scored nine goals as a rookie last season, has three goals in two games. He also scored six times in the exhibition season.
Defenceman Brandon Manning and left-winger Alexander Wiklund had first-period power-play goals for the Bruins, who got third-period goals from centre Jadon Potter and defenceman Matt Strong.
The Bruins, who were outshot 32-29, finished 2-for-8 on the power play, while the Blazers were 3-for-8. With his club having given up 14 power-play opportunites in two games, Smith is a bit concerned.
“The penalty situation . . . it’s about keeping your feet moving, keeping your stick down,” he said. “We’re giving up so many opportunities. We just get rolling and we take a penalty . . . we just get rolling and we take a penalty.
“Even if they don’t score, you kill penalties, you wear guys out, guys are tired, you get out of your shift rotation, guys who have to sit on the bench lose their momentum and their legs are stiff when they get out.
“It’s frustrating.”
Still, the Blazers, a team that is coming off a season in which it lost 18 of its last 19 games, picked up three points from two games.
“Yes, it was a good opening weekend,” Smith said.
JUST NOTES: The Blazers didn’t skate Sunday and are to return to practice today. . . . Smith went with the same lineup that beat Everett on Friday, meaning G Jon Groenheyde, D Brandon Underwood and F Uriah Machuga were scratched, as was C Mark Hall (knee). RW Tyler Shattock (San Jose Sharks) and D Nick Ross (Phoenix Coyotes) remain in NHL camps. Ross will play for the Coyotes in an exhibition game against the Kings in Los Angeles tonight, while Shattock is expected back early this week. . . . The Bruins, in just their third WHL season, are 3-0 in home-openers. . . . Chilliwack has beaten Kamloops six times in 10 games at Prospera Centre. . . . The Blazers are at home to the Vancouver Giants on Wednesday and the Kelowna Rockets on Friday. Both games begin at 7 p.m. . . . The Rockets acquired G Kris Lazaruk, 20, from the Kootenay Ice on Saturday for a conditional 2010 fourth-round bantam draft pick. Lazaruk had been one of four 20-year-olds with the Ice. His acquisition means that the Rockets now are trying to trade G Torrie Jung, 19, who had been expected to be their starter. . . . The Rockets opened with two road losses — 5-2 to the Tri-City Americans on Saturday and 2-1 to the Portland Winter Hawks on Sunday. Ross’s younger brother, Bradley, the fifth pick in the 2007 bantam draft, set up both Portland goals.
gdrinnan@kamloopsnews.ca