November 2nd vs. Victoria Cougars - Hockey Ops.

Good Evening Hockey Fans,

Welcome back to the Panorama Recreation Centre where your Peninsula Panthers will play host to the VIJHL leading Victoria Cougars.  This is the 2nd visit by the crosstown “Cats”, the last time in was four weeks ago when the Cougars skated off with a 3-1 win.  As many of you may recall, the game was tied at 1-1 going into the 3rd period and it was truly game on.  But the Cougars found the back of the Panthers net behind Stephen Heslop in a 12-second span and the storyline was written.  I thought that our kids really played hard that night and really, for most of the season and I am looking for much of the same tonight.

On the back end we will be missing 17-year-old Austin Singhera but Brett Sjerven has slotted into that spot in the roster after being banged up a bit over the past couple of weeks.  The game will be a bit special for Brett but I will speak to that a bit later on.  Heslop will be once again making the start between the pipes and I look for him to have a big game for the squad.  I see his development this year really moving along both on and off the ice and I rank him right up there with the best in the VIJHL in goal.  For a 17-year-old he has such a bright future and I believe his play will get even better as we move along this season.  Up front Brett Clarke is out with a knee injury however he is close to skating once again and he should be back in the lineup in the next several weeks.  Logan Gibson is suspended for the next three games after getting into a punch-up late in the Kerry Park game last Saturday in Mill Bay.  We will miss Logan’s energy tonight and I know he would love to be out there competing with the rest of his teammates.  We have a couple of game-time decisions to make with a couple forwards who are banged up and are questionable - we shall see how that goes. 

As a result of these injuries and suspension, we have called up Nathan Looysen from the Peninsula Midget “AA” Club for his first taste of Junior action.  As you may recall, last Friday we brought up Garnett Roberts to fill in for an injury-filled back end and like Garnett, I expect Nathan to work his tail off and have a great game for us tonight.  Looysen is a 16-year-old kid who hails from the Peninsula and has been a hard core Panthers fan forever.  I still recall Nathan and his mom and dad walking through the doors on Friday night’s when Nathan was five years old.  I used to joke with Spencer and Allison about Nathan playing for the Panthers when he was older and now tonight is the night.  I love stories like this, Mike Scarborough had exactly the same story and ended up playing for the Panthers before moving on to the Western Hockey League.  Allison Looysen and JoAnn Sjerven are sisters which makes our #5 Brett Sjerven and Nathan Looysen cousins.  Both of these fellows are starting the game and will be on the blueline for the National Anthem and I know that this is pretty exciting for both the Looysen and Sjerven families.  Nathan has real offensive skill and now needs to improve the defensive side of his game without it taking away from his offence.  This is a very cool storyline for tonight’s contest, watch how it develops from the first shift on.  Congrats to the Looysen family and welcome to the Panthers!

Last weekend we lost a couple games to the Westshore Wolves at home on Friday night and up in Mill Bay at the hands of the Kerry Park Islanders.  I thought that our Club was extremely flat in both contests after having played some great hockey over the past several weeks, racking up five wins in a row at one point.  I fully expect that we will see a bounce back game tonight.  There has been one thing that has really troubled me and that has been our poor starts even while we were winning.  We have been down by one or two every single game and have then come back but this is a two-sided sword.  The good side is that we are showing the character to rebound after poor starts, however as was clearly demonstrated last Friday night, a team cannot continue to do this and find success.  This is a veteran and talented Cougars squad we are facing tonight and I fully expect that we will come out of the chute hard and play a full 60 minutes.

Last weekend Dane Gibson was a busy boy playing with the Cowichan Capitals of the BCHL in Nanaimo against the Clippers on Friday night, he played for the Panthers Saturday against the Islanders, and then was back

playing for the Capitals on Sunday afternoon in Duncan when they hosted the Powell River Kings.  Dane did not hit the score sheet in the scoring department in the two contests however should have been awarded an assist on a Cowichan marker in the Powell River game early in the 1st period.  He did hit the sheet in the 3rd frame when he was whistled with a 4-minute high sticking penalty.  This young fellow saw a lot of hockey last week due to practice and play with both teams but has now had two days off and should have some nice jump out on the sheet tonight.  Congrats goes out to Dane on his call-up, and hopefully there will be a lot more of them in the near future.

We are playing in our 19th game tonight in a 48-game regular season, have seen every single club come into our barn except the Saanich Braves - they make their first visit on THURSDAY, November 29th - and have travelled to all the other eight rinks in the VIJHL.  Our kids should have a pretty good idea what Junior Hockey is like in the VIJHL with this experience under our belts.  The teams are starting to sort themselves out at this point, with the Cougars leading the way, Saanich in 2nd, the Panthers and Wolves battling for 3rd and Kerry Park bringing up the rear.  The one thing that I have seen like never before is parity in our League.  I don’t think I have ever seen the level this high in the ten years I have been involved in the VIJHL and there is no question that on any night, any team can beat any team.  As I wrote this last night I checked the box scores for the evening and I saw that the Kerry Park Islanders downed the Westshore Wolves by  5-2 while the Cougars won a squeaker over the Nanaimo Buccaneers 3-1 at the Archie Browning Arena.  It’s like this every night!  Close games with each team battling right to the

final buzzer.  And for the fans, I honestly don’t think it could ever get better.  With the NHL not playing games, now is a great time for our League to make strides and find new fans - I hope that there are a few in the stands tonight.

Check out the “Fan Favourite” on this insert, cut it out, vote for your favourite player and give it to Coreen in the ticket booth.   At this point, Josh Adkins is leading the pack but there are others that are close so please vote early and often.  Well, we should just about be ready to go as you read the final words, look at the stats and the lineups.  Thanks for coming out and supporting the boys and our Club.  Now get loud & enjoy the game.  Pete Z.