Photo credit: Steve Dunsmoor
Rockets bump the slump
Things that make me go hmm….
Nov 22, 2023 | 8:00 AM
- Tij Iginla (photo above) is catching the eye of NHL scouts with each outing. You can’t but be impressed with his 18 goals in 22 games this season for a second-year player, which is the second-best goal total of any draft-eligible player in the WHL, only behind 21-goal man Terik Parasak of the Prince George Cougars. If you compare Iginla’s terrific goal-scoring pace with Andrew Cristall in his draft year, they are close to identical. A second-round selection of the Washington Capitals this past summer, Cristall had 18 goals in his opening 21 regular season games. That pace was even better than Nolan Foote, who in his draft year, scored 13 goals and his opening 21 games before eventually being chosen in the first round, 27th overall, by the Tampa Bay Lightning.
- Terik Parasak’s 21 goals as a rookie is impressive. The WHL record for goals by a rookie is 82, set by Don Murdoch with the Medicine Hat Tigers in 1974-75. Yes, they had goalies then!!!
- It was nice to hear longtime Kelowna Rockets public address announcer Bill Barnes on the microphone Saturday night. Barnes has been out of action with an eye ailment, or should we call it an upper-body injury, for most of the home games this season. Barnes, who has been a fixture since the team relocated from Tacoma to Kelowna, explained to RocketFAN how he originally got the gig. “For some bizarre reason, it is always something I wanted to do,” Barnes admitted. “I was working in radio at the time, as we were desperately trying to get the broadcast rights for Rockets games. I got to know the Hamilton family. The first season went by, and at the end of it I mentioned to Anne-Marie Hamilton [Marketing Director and Game Night Operations] that if the opportunity ever came up, I would be very interested.” The rest, as they say, is history.
- Does this make you feel any better? The longest winless streak this season is owned by the Kamloops Blazers. It is hard to remember, but the Blazers went 10 games without a victory from September 30th to October 24th. They didn’t win their second game of the season until October 27th against the Tri-City Americans. The Rockets winless streak, thankfully, stopped at nine.
- We had to look up the longest winless streak in WHL history. It is held by the 1974-75 Regina Pats. They went 36 games without a regulation victory.
- Steve Papp wasn’t on the ice, but in the broadcast booth at Prospera Place Saturday night. The just retired WHL referee was a colour analyst on Prince George Cougars radio. In some respects Papp, who calls Kelowna home, comes by calling hockey games naturally. “My dad did play-by-play [on radio] for the old Kelowna Spartans back in the day,” Papp told RocketFAN. “We billeted players back them. For six years we had three different guys stay at our house. I have an older brother, so when I was 6 until 12, these players were like older brothers to both of us.”
- It happened no less than twice Saturday night against the visiting Prince George Cougars. A neck guard fell off a player and was sitting on the ice surface. It posed the question on our broadcast if the player must exit the ice if he loses his neck guard during the play. Hockey Canada’s rule states that if a player participates in the play without a neck guard, a two-minute minor penalty will be applied against him for illegal equipment. In most cases, the officials on the ice inform the player he has lost his neck guard and directs them off the ice.
- If there is a season where you wished the Kelowna Rockets played the Kamloops Blazers more, it would be this season. Would the Blazers not be the tonic the Rockets need to drink in order to get back in the win column on a regular basis? The Blazers are below them in the standing and appear to be on-par with their closest rival in overall skill level. The two teams don’t meet each other until after the Christmas break with a home and home series scheduled for December 27th and 29th. They will face each other eight times, which equates to 16 points up for grabs. All eight meetings are back-to-back weekend games which are ideal for fans from both centre’s.
- You would think Andrew Cristall will get an invite to Hockey Canada’s main camp in an effort to play at the upcoming world junior hockey championships in Gothenburg, Sweden. That said, Cristall was not one of 45 players invited to virtual meetings this summer. Cristall, born in 2005, wasn’t one of two (Zach Benson and Brayden Yager) WHL players invited to that camp. I’d give him a look-see, just to give him the experience so he can be a piece of the puzzle as a 19-year-old in 2024.
- How about Kelowna Rockets goaltender Jake Pilon defending the ‘lacrosse’ attempt by Prince George Cougars forward Koehn Zeimmer Saturday night? The second-round NHL draft pick of the LA Kings tried it, but Pilon sniffed it out beautifully by putting his glove hand up near his ear and denied the crafty scorer from making the WHL Plays of the Week. Call me old school, but I don’t like to call the move – ‘The Michigan’ – even though it was first pulled off by Mike Legg back in 1996 with the Michigan Wolverines. Being a WHL broadcaster, and the league in direct competition for hockey talent with the NCAA, if the roles were reversed, I am sure an NCAA announcer wouldn’t call it ‘The W-H-L’, had it been pulled off in our league first.
- The Lethbridge Hurricanes, who visited Prospera Place Tuesday night are one of only four community-owned franchises. That means 18 of the 22 are privately owned. The Hurricanes are joined on that list by Swift Current, Moose Jaw, and Prince Albert.
- Lethbridge Hurricanes GM Peter Anholt has a special bond with the Kelowna Rockets. Not only did he coach here in the mid-90s for two seasons, but his best man at his wedding was Bruce Hamilton’s younger brother – Brent. Anholt remembers the good old days playing in the old Memorial Arena. “I don’t think you can have better kids than Jason Deleurme, Ryan Wade, Vernon Fiddler, and Scott Hannan,” Anholt told RocketFAN. The Rockets iced some big teams back then, who often won the intimidation battle. “That rink [Memorial Arena] was conducive to having tough teams in there because of how small it was. That division was so big and strong back then. Seattle was big and strong. Spokane had a tough team, but we still had lots of skill and that was probably overlooked by many.”
- We had to ask Anholt to comment on Kelowna Rockets Head Coach Kris Mallette as a player. “He was one of the crew of tough guys we had,” Anholt recalled. “He made our team because of how hard he worked. He was a good character guy, and he was a right-shot defenseman, and that really worked well in that rink. You always have certain players that bring a smile to your face as soon as you hear their name, and Kris is one of them.”
- Does Anholt have any fond memories of the old Memorial Arena? “I know we had lots of fans get picked off by pucks,” he said, adding those weren’t exactly good moments. “I do remember one game we had a piece of glass get knocked out behind our own net and we had to fill it with a piece with plywood.”
- What kind of reception will Tij Iginla get when he plays his first game against his old team Wednesday night? Iginla was acquired from the Seattle T-Birds back on June 7th.
- At 1340 words, its time to close the barn doors shut. One more thing before I let you go, for the grace of God – cover your cough. It is an easy saying to remember. When you cough or sneeze, do it into your sleeve. Haven’t we learned this yet? An open sneeze or cough spreads your droplets everywhere. A sneeze can reach speeds of 42 kilometers per-hour.
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