Day 4 . . . first period

DAY 4 AT THE MASTERCARD MEMORIAL CUP . . .

FIRST PERIOD:
It’s the Calgary Hitmen and the Windsor Spitfires, the champions of the WHL and the OHL. . . . This is going to be like two bull elk butting heads near Jasper. . . . Calgary GM Kelly Kisio is in the seat from which he watched the first two periods of Saturday’s game. . . . Windsor will defend the south end twice tonight and you wonder if G Philipp Grubauer is concerned about bounces like the one that bit Moncton on Saturday. . . . The Spitfires get in on the forecheck and D Giffen Nyren coughs it up. F Dale Mitchell, with the best ’stache in town, beats G Martin Jones along the ice and through the legs. Jones will want that one back. . . . Calgary will try to use the D pairing of Zak Stebner and Matt Mackenzie against the Taylor Hall line. . . . With Hall on the left wing, that puts Stebner on his side of the ice. Earlier this season, when Stebner was in Kamloops, his confidence was so low that he was being used as a forward. Now he’s out there to try and handle the guy who likely will be the first pick in the NHL’s draft next month. . . . Windsor on the PP and it’s Hall blazing down the left side. Slap shot beats Jones to the short side. That’s two he wants back. . . . Windsor D Cam Fowler maybe got away with some interference as Calgary F Cody Beach goes down at the Spitfires’ line. Beach looks like he may be hurt. He drew into the lineup with F Brandon Kozun in the stands. . . . Jones stops that one and, yes, he gets a bit of the old raspberry. . . . Shots are 4-2 for Windsor at the first TV timeout. . . . Grubauer with a left pad on F Misha Fisenko and that was Calgary’s best chance. . . . Suddenly, Windsor has a 6-4 edge in shots. Must have brought in the Vancouver Giants’ shot counters for this one. . . . The 50/50 pool already is at $11,165 and the period isn’t half over. . . . With a 2-0 lead, Windsor dumps it in and goes in on the forecheck with three, then two, then three, then two guys behind the icing line. . . . This could be a long, hard night for the Calgary defencemen. . . . Beach is back out there now. . . . Grubauer with a big stop off F MacKenzie Royer. . . . Jones with a nifty glove save and he looks like he’s got his groove back. . . . Windsor is offside and there’s Stebner beaking at Hall. . . . Is it true that the NBA pushed back the start of the Phoenix Suns-L.A. Lakers game so as not to clash with the telecast of this game by Sportsnet? . . . That being the case, who does Kobe have in this one? . . . There’s a trip and Calgary is on its first PP. . . . The Hitmen are banging it around down there but can’t get it past Grubauer. . . . Shots are 14-10 for Windsor and it has a 2-0 lead.