Good Evening Hockey Fans,
Well here we go once more, a Friday evening at the friendly confines of the Panorama Recreation Centre. Tonight coming in for their first visit of this young season is Northern Division foe, the Oceanside Generals. This is our second meeting of the season with the Generals - we came out second best losing 1-0 up in Oceanside on September 9th on our first road game of the year. In that game we were a discombobulated group just trying to learn each other’s name never mind playing like a cohesive group. But things have changed in my mind and we are starting to come together much as I suspected that we would. Many of you will recall a great first round match up with this same Club, a series we went in as an underdog. We won the first three games and then after losing the next two, we wrapped the series up in game 6 on home ice in front of our home crowd. I look for our Club to come out skating hard tonight and to hopefully put up a win and two points on the standings board.
I have pointed to the first 10 games as a big learning curve, we now are going into game 11. I believe we will start to see more wins moving forward, we currently sit with a 5-5 win/loss record. I now want to see the Club compete at the highest level every single shift and begin to get the winning mentality -this is the 2nd phase of our Club’s development.
I believe our coaches have done a good job with the kids. Some of our guys are happy with their ice time, others would like a bit more and a few believe that they should be playing a lot more and should be taking on a bigger role. They have let us know their feelings and I have no problem with this, in fact I encourage an open discussion and open communication. We have a lot of skill and heart on this Club and players will have to earn every minute of playing time that they get. Playing time in Junior Hockey is earned, not equal! After saying this, I encourage...in fact demand that our coaches develop every single player and this will result in wins down the road. A player who at this point might be a top six forward may fall to a third line role down the road while a player in the bottom six might break into a top six role somewhere down the road. I put a lot of value into a strong work ethic and a great attitude and those types of players will be rewarded. Those are the types of players that fans want to see play. They are the ones that we recruited all spring and summer long. They are the ones that will learn and strive to be better. They are the ones that will bring you out of your seat and we have a whole bunch of them!
I wanted to discuss our goaltending situation and our starter between the pipes tonight, Justin Samra. Last year when the club went into the playoffs we had two 19-year-olds between the pipes. Both were strong goaltenders but both had played a secondary role for the most part during their time in Junior Hockey. Rob Armstrong had identified Stephen Heslop who was a 16-year-old playing for the Juan de Fuca Midget team last season. We brought him up for a couple games late in the regular season and I went and watched him play five times late in the year. Heslop was inserted into our lineup as a backup but took over the starting role early in our first round of the playoffs against these same Generals. Our Club had a nice playoff run and much of this credit went to Heslop and deservedly so and at the end of the playoffs we made a commitment to Stephen and he made a commitment to our Club. He was signed to be our starter and has been exactly what we thought he would be. We now were in need of a second goalie who would accept the backup role and would be ready to go when his name was called. We looked at quite a number of targets and in the end Justin Samra was what we were looking for. He was told that he would be starting out backing up Heslop and he agreed and I believe he has been an excellent team player throughout this process. Samra started against a Comox Valley Glacier Kings who are currently running away with the Northern Division and came away with a 4-2 win. He started against the Kerry Park Islanders and was chased after allowing four goals, a couple I am sure he would have liked back. He went in last Wednesday early in the 3rd period with our Club leading 7-1 against the Westshore Wolves in a fight-filled game and made quite a number of good saves in a mop-up role. Tonight he will once again get the start and it is
well-deserved. Samra has battled in practice from day one, has been a positive influence on the bench all season long and I for one am pulling for him to have a great game. We are going to try and get him a couple more starts over the next couple of weeks and once again, this time is not a gift, he has earned it through hard work and through a great attitude.
Tomorrow night the Club will travel to Comox to face the Glacier Kings, a team that is on a big roll at present. Comox came out of the gates a bit slow but as of late they are lighting it up and have been one of the best Clubs in the league over the past three or four weeks. This will be a great test for the team and it will also be good to get the guys on the bus for the road trip up North.
How are you enjoying our Panthers website?? If you have not been checking out the articles which we try and put out every couple of days, please take a peek at www.ppanthers.bc.ca and let us know your thoughts. We want to make the website the best it can be so if you have any ideas or if you would like to see something that we are not putting up, please let Coreen know in the ticket booth. You can also email us through our website. I promise that I will get back to each and every person who sends me a message and I will consider every single request. Our goal is to have an interesting site that highlights the team and the players and promotes each and every one of them. Coreen has designed this insert and although I write on it each week, she makes the week-to-week changes on everything else. Please note where she has an area where you can vote for your favourite player. We choose the “Fan Favourite” based strictly on fan votes passed into Coreen in the ticket booth so
PLEASE vote early and often, the players will appreciate your input.
I want to take a moment to touch on an incident in the news the last couple days - the suicide of 15-year-old Amanda Todd. She had reached out on Youtube after being bullied, but her cry fell on deaf ears. It is all of our responsibility to be aware of what is going on in our community and to step up if needed. Although tough at times, we cannot turn a blind eye.
It’s time, my favorite time of the week. Thank you once again for your great support. I can see the fans becoming more familiar with the team and I can see our players becoming closer to the fans. Enjoy the evening!
Pete Zubersky
Hockey Operations
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