Catching up . . .

There was an interesting bit in Saturday’s Vancouver Sun concerning the Giants at the ownership level.
Greg Douglas, who does a column as Dr. Sport that appears in The Sun most Saturdays, frequently mentions Giants majority owner Ron Toigo in these columns. Such was the case Saturday when he touched on Toigo and the decision a couple of years ago to let Gordie Howe, who at the time was thought to be having financial problems, sell his five per cent ownership share back to the other Giants’ owners. That five per cent, by the way, brought Howe US$200,000 and that was two or three years ago.
Anyway . . . all of this became public knowledge thanks to a story by Charlie Gillis in Maclean’s magazine.
So I scooted over there and gave it a read. This is a shocker, if ever there was one, and is definitely worth reading. It’s right here.
And a tip of the hat to Toigo for the role he has played through all of this.
As he told Douglas: “I phone (Howe) every second Sunday morning just to check in. He loves his association with the Giants and, as far as I’m concerned, he’s with us for the rest of his life.”
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SATURDAY LEFTOVERS:
Cory Wolfe of the Saskatoon StarPhoenix reported that tickets for the two NHL exhibition games scheduled for Credit Union Centre in September sold out in 30 minutes. The New York Islanders, who will open their training camp in Saskatoon, are to play the Calgary Flames on Sept. 19 and the Edmonton Oilers on Sept. 20. The building seats 11,000. About 7,000 tickets were claimed in pre-sale which involved Saskatoon Blades’ season-ticket holders and fans with packages to the 2010 World Junior Championship. The other 15,000 tickets disappeared in a hurry Saturday morning. . . . The end result of all this could be that the Islanders set up training camp in Saskatoon prior to the 2010-11 and 2011-12 seasons, as well. . . .
Vancouver G Jamie Tucker stopped 23 shots as the Giants dumped the visiting Everett Silvertips, 7-0. . . . Tucker is 13-0-0-1 in his freshman season. He has four shutouts, a 1.55 GAA and a .932 save percentage. . . . Attendance at Pacific Coliseum was 11,056, meaning the Giants put 24,183 fans in their building in a 24-hour span. They beat the visiting Kamloops Blazers 5-1 on Friday. It was the first time in franchise history the Giants have topped 10 grand on consecutive nights. . . . The Giants clinched a playoff spot with Friday’s victory . . .
Brandon’s line of Andrew Clark, Jay Fehr and Matt Lowry totaled 11 points and was plus-11 but the Wheat Kings needed a shootout to beat the visiting Kootenay Ice, 6-5. . . . Fehr is riding a 17-game point streak and has goals in seven straight games. Clark, scored three times in regulation time and added another in the shootout, is on a 16-game point streak. He has 29 goals this season. . . .
The Spokane Chiefs, playing before a sold-out crowd of 10,538, beat the Tri-City Americans 5-2 to close to within four points of the Western Conference’s second seed. The Chiefs, who have won eight in a row, have two games in hand on the Americans, too. . . . The game included six fights, four of them coming in the second period’s opening minute. . . . “I think the second period was really the turning point . . . four fights in a row and we won every single one of them in my opinion,” Spokane C Jared Cowen, who scrapped with Spencer Asuchak, told freelancer Jessica Brown, who covered the game for the Spokane Spokesman-Review. “I know (Tri-City’s Taylor) Procyshen asked (Levko) Koper to go first and it was just a domino effect after that, but I think it’s fun to watch and it’s fun to do it. Usually there aren’t that many fights – especially not in the span of 30 seconds. And there haven’t been that many fights with them in a long time, so it was a nice change of pace.” . . . Among Spokane’s scratches was F Ryan Letts (separated shoulder). He was injured Friday when he was hit from behind by Seattle Thunderbirds F Charles Wells. . . .
The Kelowna Rockets went 3-for-3 on the PP and beat the host Kamloops Blazers 5-2. Kelowna is 5-0 versus Kamloops this season, with one of those victories coming in a shootout. . . . The Rockets are 12-for-35 on the PP in the five games. . . . The Blazers were 1-for-8 with the man advantage. . . . Kelowna had lost four straight (0-2-0-2). . . . Kelowna F Ian Duval had two goals and an assist, with F Brandon McMillan adding a goal and two helpers. But it was Kelowna D Collin Bowman, who often gets lost behind the likes of Tyler Myers and Tyson Barrie, who was the best player on the ice. The 17-year-old Bowman, the younger brother of Spokane LW Drayson Bowman, didn’t pick up any points but really played well. . . . Kamloops C C.J. Stretch picked up an assist on his club’s first goal to run his point streak to 13 games.