Feb. 7th vs. Campbell River Storm - Hockey Ops.

Good Evening Hockey Fans,

Hello to all and welcome back to the friendly confines of the Panorama Recreation Centre.  Such a BIG game this evening, very, very big, so there should be a ton of entertainment value to this one!

For starters, I thought I would do this write-up just a little bit different this evening.  The playoff format is first and foremost on my mind and after fully understanding it you will see what I mean.  Yes, I am going to speak about the contest tonight and how the two Clubs who will meet on the ice tonight look, but I will speak about our situation and the implications this game holds tonight.

The playoff format for the five teams in the South Division of the VIJHL have been set.  All three rounds of the playoffs will be best-of-seven affairs.  Round one in the South is set to go.  The Victoria Cougars will have home-ice advantage and will take on the visiting Kerry Park Islanders.  I will be honest, I am pulling for the Kerry Park Islanders.  The Victoria Cougars have owned the Islanders this season and all expectations are that the Islanders will fall victim to the Cougars in four straight.  I would like to see the Islanders win, not for any advantage that the Peninsula Panthers might gain but rather because I love how Mark Osmond, who is the owner of the Islanders, runs his Organization.  I love how Dale Purinton who is the Coach of the Islanders runs his Club.  The Islanders are in the game to move players along and I see that as they lost several key players down the stretch.  Purinton could have held his players close to the vest down the stretch, could have tried to do everything he could to help his chances in the playoffs, but instead he had the best interests of his players in the forefront of his thoughts.  Dale, good on you!  Trail Smokeeaters took a couple key guys and that may have spelled the end for the Islanders this year.  He didn’t care.  He only cared about his players and I am 100% of the same mindset - we do exactly the same thing.  If any kid is looking for a place to play and move his career ahead, the Kerry Park Islanders is a great place to look up.

We then made a deal with the Islanders for Milligan and Branzsen.  Neither Osmond nor Purinton held these kids up, in fact they moved them on so that they had a chance to win as 20-year-olds.  Yes they made a good deal for their own Organization, no question about that.  They received a good sum of cash and a couple of kids that will be great players in this league in the next two seasons to come.  But they did not hold back their guys and I have no doubt that they are hoping that these two kids have a great playoff run.    Play your hearts out, we would love nothing better than to see you win the Round 1 series.  I believe our Organization has exactly the same philosophy as the Islanders, in fact I believe that we started this philosophy in 1999 when Coreen and I purchased the Club from Mark Wagstaff.  I saw a comment in the Times Colonist from Cougars’ Coach Mark VanHelvoirt that the Peninsula Panthers have brought in some older kids and that we have a reputation for having younger teams.  He was right on both counts.  We did bring in 20-year-olds Branzsen and Milligan and we do have young kids that I believe will move on to Junior A next season, kids like Buchanan, Costain, Logan, Coughlin and newly-acquired Ball.  We have others like Heslop and Pearce that are on the bubble and others that I have not mentioned.  As ever, we will move as many kids to Junior A in the off-season as any Club in this league, but we also believe that we have a chance to win and so we wanted to roll dice right now.  We will worry about next year....well....next year.  Holy Cow, I love the playoffs and the emotions that it brings.  Hockey is an emotional game for emotional people and so here we go!  I think I have just kicked off the playoff season and Lord knows, I absolutely love the playoffs!

I am going to talk about our game in Nanaimo last night and our current VIJHL standings in a moment.  Yes, we are in a battle with the Campbell River Storm and without a doubt, tonight is our biggest game of the year to date.  Flip the page and you will see that whoever wins this game in regulation will be in 2nd place in the VIJHL with three games to go, no question this is a HUGE game!  Before we look at the game last night in Nanaimo, I wanted to talk a bit about where we are in our season and how this impacts the standings.  We will not meet the Victoria Cougars unless both teams make it to the VIJHL Finals.  We will face the Westshore Wolves who know how to score goals and here is the schedule for our best of seven series:

Game #1 @ Panorama  Monday, Feb 17th @ 7:30 pm
Game #2 @ Bear Mountain Wednesday, Feb 19th @ 7:00 pm
Game #3 @ Panorama  Friday, Feb 21 @ 7:30 pm
Game #4 @ Bear Mountain Saturday, Feb 22 @ 6:00 pm
Game #5 @ Panorama Monday, Feb 24 @ 7:30   (if required)
Game #6 @Bear Mountain Tues, Feb 26 @ 7:00 (if required)
Game#7 @Panorama Friday, Feb 28 @7:30 pm (if required)

Moving on, we played the Nanaimo Buccaneers last night in the hub city and it was a heck of a game.  However that paled in comparison to the experience I was able to have on the way up to the game, the game itself and the way back.  Some of you know Spencer Judson, many of you might not.  Spencer might just be the biggest Panthers’ fan out there and I asked him to join us on the trip last night.  Spence is 18 years old and wears a Panthers Jersey to every game.  I remember two years ago when we played the Saanich Braves and knocked them off in seven games to get to the finals, Spencer was there to give cookies to all the players in the room after the game.  His mother Carol is also a great fan and so early in the season I told Spencer that he would be coming on a trip with the team.  Well, on Thursday I had as good a time as Spencer did and that was a BIG time!  Thursday night with Spencer makes me happy to be involved in hockey.  As his mother, Carol says, “Spencer is on the earth to make people smile,” and he does just that.  Every single game Spencer makes me laugh and laugh and nobody wants a win more for the Panthers than Spencer.  Last night was a ton of fun!

Alrighty then!  I have not discussed much about tonight’s game so let’s get to that now.  Campbell River travelled to Bear Mountain on Wednesday night and ended up on the wrong side of an 8-7 score.  And of course we travelled up to Nanaimo last night and ended up on the wrong side of a 5-1 count.  I thought we dominated the 1st period and had four great scoring chances, but the period ended scoreless and from there it was all downhill.  Sean Buchanan managed to score his 14th goal of the season, but other than that, the game did not provide much to write home about.  A couple of our kids played well including Reece Costain and Cody Breitenstein, but there were just too many passengers and the result made the bus trip home just that little bit longer.

But tonight is a different night and I know that both teams want this one dearly.  If the Storm beats us tonight, it will make it very difficult to catch them in the standings.  We would go down three points with only three games remaining, and we would need to have a lot of help from other Clubs for us to get back in the chase for 2nd overall.  On the flip side, a win in regulation would vault us ahead of the Storm and we would have control of our own destiny for the final week of the regular season.  Stephen Heslop will be starting between the pipes tonight and he has had experience over the past two seasons in games that mean a whole lot.  Matt Sheeran is once again a scratch tonight after having blown out his shoulder eight days ago in Victoria against the Cougars.  He will require surgery and his season is over.  Defenceman Kyle Richardson was involved in a scrap last night in Nanaimo and due to an accumulation of fighting majors, he has been issued with an automatic suspension for tonight.  Head Coach Brian Passmore will have a tough decision to make in terms of who will be a healthy scratch, and I’m sure that will be a game-time decision.  The Storm are a very skilled Club and once again we will have to be physical to slow them down this evening.  This is our fourth and final game this season with the Storm and they have had their way with us earlier this year.  Our roster has clearly been revamped since the last time we tangled and so tonight will be a great measuring stick for not only our Club, but also for the Campbell River Storm.  If both of our teams were to make it through the 1st Round, this could be a preview of a potential Round 2 match-up, and so there is obviously a lot of interesting storylines going on this evening.
Next Saturday night will be our Awards Banquet at the Glen Meadows Golf & Country Club on McTavish Road only minutes from the Panorama Recreation Centre.  This is an open invitation to any of you who would like to join us for the evening and if this piques your interest, please see Coreen in the Lobby to purchase your tickets.

We have just started our Marketing campaign for the upcoming 2014-15 season and as an Organization we try to do a lot of work in this area over the next three months of the calendar year.  Junior Hockey is an extremely tough business and without corporate support, it would be impossible to survive.  Out here on the Peninsula, our Organization prides itself on being key members in the community and the support that we get in sponsorship has always been nothing short of excellent.  If you currently are a sponsor, we thank you and hope that you will continue to support the Organization, and if you are not a sponsor and have an interest in becoming one, please see Coreen and she will direct you to our Marketing people.  Once again, your support is crucial to the ongoing success of the Peninsula Panthers.

Alright, the curtain is about to rise and the puck is just about set to drop.  As I mentioned, this game tonight without a doubt is our biggest game of the year thus far.  I am pretty sure that you are going to be witnessing an intense 60 minutes of hockey, and so sit back, kick up your heels and enjoy!
Pete Zubersky