November 23rd vs. Westshore Wolves - Hockey Ops.

Good Evening Hockey Fans,

Welcome back to the Panorama Recreation Centre for our game tonight against the Westshore Wolves.  We are into the second half of the season now - we are playing our 26th game while the Wolves have played one less in the 48-game VIJHL schedule.  We are in a tough battle with the Wolves for 3rd place in the South Division and actually 3rd place overall in the entire League.  The top 4 teams in points all come from the South including Victoria, Saanich, Peninsula and Westshore.  I am going to speak more about the game tonight and our past week a bit later, but on to more important happenings with the Club.

18-year-old Goaltender Justin Samra has been released as of early yesterday morning.  The Comox Valley Glacier Kings acquired a goalie from the KIJHL and this made their stopper expendable.  Another 18-year-old, Josh Round hails from Whitehorse however played some of his Midget years in Minor Hockey in Campbell River while living with his Grandmother there.  Round was signed by the Glacier Kings and played in 14 games including three against our Club.  We won all three, albeit, two of them came by way of a shootout and the other one was a 2-0 victory for the Panthers last Friday night at the Panorama Recreation Centre.  Round is a big goaltender at 6’3 and 185 lbs. and he will get the start in tonight’s contest.  I spoke to Round a couple of times this past week and then he drove down to the Victoria area Wednesday evening and we met face-to-face.  My impression of him is that he is a great young fellow with a lot of character.  He was told that he would backup to our starter, Stephen Heslop and Round was fine with that but let it be known that he wants to challenge for the starter’s job.  Undoubtedly that mind-set will set off a really healthy competition between the pipes for our Team and in most all cases, this situation tends to make both goalies play better as they battle for minutes.

When Stephen was signed in the very early summer I promised him that he would be our starter and would play between 30-35 games this season.  To date, Stephen has played more minutes than any goaltender in the VIJHL sitting atop this category having 1205 minutes played under his belt.  This equates to slightly more than 20 full games and so he is on track to reach the 30 game plateau or 1800 minutes played.  After tonight, we will have 22 games left and so like the rest of the positions on the Club, time played will be time earned.  I believe this is the next step in the development of this young stopper.  He is only 17 years old and I believe he should move on to the BCHL next season all things being equal.  At the next level the competition will be daily and there will always be another goalie that wants to come in and displace the incumbent.  I believe that Round will push Stephen to be better and after saying this, I believe that Heslop is the best stopper in the VIJHL especially considering his youth.  Yes this move is good for Round, this move is good for Heslop, this move is good for the Peninsula Panthers.

Back to Samra....he was a fantastic teammate and person and he will be greatly missed in the dressing room and around the team.  It became somewhat of a struggle to find him minutes and I could just not see this changing and so we decided to make the change.  In cases like this most teams keep the player on the team roster with intentions of moving him to another club in either the VIJHL, PIJHL and KIJHL - in this case Justin would remain the property of the Panthers until a deal has been completed.  In our case, we gave Justin his outright release and we did that because he was such an awesome citizen for our hockey team.  This should make it easier for Justin to find another place to ply his trade as the team picking up his services will be able to do it without providing the outgoing club - in this case the Peninsula Panthers - any considerations.  We wish Justin Samra the best of luck in the future and we in Panthersland will be following his progress with interest.

Last Friday night we downed the North Division leading Comox Valley Glacier Kings 2-0 and then on Sunday we travelled up to Oceanside to play the Generals in an afternoon affair.  Our kids played a great game in Friday’s win and followed it up with a well-deserved 7-4 win on Sunday.

We actually lead 7-1 midway through the 3rd frame but then took our foot off their throats and allowed three late goals and for Samra, this would prove to be his last game of his tenure with the Club.  And then last night we travelled to Nanaimo to take on a red hot Buccaneers squad in search of their 5th straight win.  The Bucs opened up a 4-1 lead but we finally woke up and tied the game up at 4-4 taking the contest into overtime.  With 1:22 left in the extra frame we coughed up the puck in the neutral zone and allowed a Bucs forward to go in alone on Heslop and he made no mistake giving the Bucs an exciting 5-4 win.  We did pick up an all important single point and, while it would have been nice to leave with a win under our belts, we were fortunate to get a point out of the game after digging ourselves into a deep hole.

Please MAKE NOTE that WE DO NOT play next Friday, but rather on Thursday, November 29th at 7:30 pm when we host the Saanich Braves for the first time this season.  The Recreation Centre is busy for the weekend and we were forced off our usual Friday slot however we will be back in our normal game slot the following weekend.  Once again, we next play at home next Thursday night at 7:30 pm and we hope that you will all come out and join us in what should be a great game with the Braves.

On Sunday, December 9th we play a 1:30 pm game against the Braves.  This game will most likely be packed as it is our annual Peninsula Minor Hockey Appreciation day in which we crack open a brand new 3rd jersey and then gift 22 of them to lucky PMHA winners on the ice after the contest is completed.  I will discuss this game in a bit more detail next week but without a doubt, this is my favourite game of the regular season.  When I see the PMHA kids come down onto the ice and see our players take their jerseys off and place them on the kids, there is a round of smiles for everyone in the rink.  Come early for that one if you want to get your regular seat, as I mentioned it will be a full house.  We were on the way home from Nanaimo last night and I heard a few of our kids talking about the game and they are as pumped as the PMHA kids which is quite heart-warming.

OK, we are set to drop the puck.  The kids have probably taken their warmup by the time you read this so sit back and enjoy the game tonight.  Thanks for being so supportive game after game, cheers to you all! 

Pete Zubersky