Blazers are good hosts to 'Tips

By GREGG DRINNAN
Daily News Sports Editor
Tournament Capital?
As far as the WHL’s Everett Silvertips are concerned, Kamloops is the hospitality capital.
The Silvertips dumped the Kamloops Blazers 5-2 on Tuesday night before 4,045 fans at Interior Savings Centre. And with that the Silvertips swept the four-game season series from the Blazers.
Is it any wonder, then, that the Silvertips chose to stay over in Kamloops for an extra day? They arrived Monday evening, beat the Blazers on Tuesday and, rather than travel north today, chose to spend an extra day enjoying what our fine city has to offer. They will make the trek to Prince George on Thursday for a Friday-Saturday doubleheader with the Cougars.
Last night’s game originally was scheduled for tonight, but got bumped because that offensive left-winger, Larry The Cable Guy, had the barn booked. No, the Silvertips won’t be attending Mr. Cable Guy’s show this evening; rather, they will do some team building, some bonding and perhaps take in a movie.
Or maybe they will watch the video of their victory over the Blazers. That being the case, they will enjoy it.
“Right now we just want to come out and play as hard as we can,” offered Everett forward Shayne Harper, in critiquing this one. “In the first 10 minutes, not so much. We definitely called ourselves on it and said we had to play harder the rest of the game.
“The rest of the game I thought we turned in a pretty solid, hard effort.”
These days, the Silvertips are a very good hockey team with two goaltenders — Thomas Heemskerk and Kent Simpson — who, according to the numbers, are the best this league has to offer.
After beating the Blazers, Everett is 23-3-1-1 in 2010, and 42-19-3-2 overall. It is just four points off the pace being set by the Western Conference-leading Tri-City Americans (46-17-1-2).
“We had the new coach (Craig Hartsburg) and some changes,” Harper, a 20-year-old from Valencia, Calif., said in explaining how the Silvertips came to take off with the advent of a new year. “It took us a little while to buy into our systems. When we do that we can play with the best of them.
“After Christmas, everybody just was unselfish and wanted to play a team game. That was the goal . . . it just took a little while to do it. Once we started having success, everyone was ‘this is working . . . this is unbelieveable.’ We went on a 14-game streak and the winning just helps the team believe.”
Harper opened the scoring at 12:04 of the first period, setting a franchise single-season record in the process. It was his 39th goal this season, one more than John Lammers scored in 2005-06.
The Blazers got back on equal footing five minutes later when centre Mark Hall, who was their best forward, got his third of the season by tipping a Josh Caron point shot past Heemskerk.
The visitors took control in the second period when they outscored their hosts, 3-0. Forwards Clayton Cumiskey, Zack Dailey and Dan Iwanski all beat Kamloops goaltender Jon Groenheyde, who has had better nights.
Blazers defenceman Austin Madaisky scored his side’s second goal, on a third-period power play. That got the Blazers to within 4-2 but by that point, as Mr. Cable Guy might say, “Change is inevitable, except from vending machines and when the WHL’s top defensive team has a two-goal lead in the third period.”
Heemskerk finished up with 38 saves, while Groenheyde stopped 24 shots.
Groenheyde was making his third straight start, the first time he has gotten three in a row since the season’s second, third and fourth games. He went 2-1-0-0 then, too.
JUST NOTES: Each team was 1-for-4 on the PP. . . . The Blazers (30-32-2-4) are tied with the Kelowna Rockets for seventh in the Western Conference. Kamloops is home to the Vancouver Giants, a potential first-round opponent, on Friday, 7 p.m. . . . Kamloops G Kurtis Mucha, who earlier this season set CHL records for games and minutes played, isn’t likely to break the WHL record for career saves. He is 160 off Steve Passmore’s record and the Blazers have only four games remaining.

gdrinnan@kamloopsnews.ca
gdrinnan.blogspot.com