Tag Archives: WHL

Oct 2

The Winterhawks vs Seattle Thunderbirds (10-1-11)


The best team in the WHL (although, I admit, I'm biased 🙂 )

Mark this game down as one of the very few (if any) that Brad Ross of the Winterhawks has gone an entire game without any penalties (a miracle, right?). He even helped out on 3 out of the 4 Winterhawk goals, as they beat Seattle 4-2. My favorite goal, I must say, was Brad’s breakaway goal in the first period.

As many Winterhawk fans (and other U.S. divison teams’ fans) love

What's that I hear? "BOO!" 🙂

to trash talk about Seattle( and for those of you who don’t know, Seattle and Portland are massive rivals), I have to give them props for their one good player, netminder Calvin Pickard. To be a good team, you have to have a good goaltender, but, it helps even more to other players who are good too.

Also, how do you get a double game misconduct? Just ask Seattle’s Cason Machacek, who apparently got one for suckerpunching a Winterhawk, as well as trying to grab a hold of a Winterhawk player’s jersey while another Seattle Thunderbird fought him.

All in all, a great game and fun to watch.

http://whl.ca/video/index/id/1317573027, highlight video of the game.

Aug 11

The Winterhawks are the Best Major Junior Team


awesomeness

That’s a given. What makes them so great?

  1. Fifteen NHL draft picks in the past two years. Four first-rounders, five second-rounders. Oh, and let’s know forget a player who did not get drafted, but, go invited to go to a training camp and got signed.

    Brad Ross, one the NHL draft picks

  2.  Around ten players signed to NHL contracts.
  3. After being eliminated in the second round of the WHL play-offs in 2010, we made it to the league finals this year. Next year, we look to advance to the Memorial Cup, something that nobody a few years ago would have been talking about.
  4. We’ve got not one, but, two of the most hated players in the WHL, because, of their aggressiveness.
  5. A few years ago, we were at the bottom of the standings. 2010, we made the play-offs. This year, we were the division and conference champions. Next year should be another fun year.

Who can argue with that? I can’t.

Aug 7

Hockey players who make stupid choices, but, can be really good when they want to be


Winterhawks, the best hockey team ever

As a fan of the Portland Winterhawks, a major junior (Boys, ages 15-20, let’s not forget that) hockey team, I’ve seen my fair share of hockey talent, even though I’ve only been a fan since January 2010. That being said, I’ve also seen players who can’t seem to keep their emotions in check.

What really ticks me off is that ‘fans’ on forums and message boards, whenever the subject of these players come up, immediately say that we should trade them! I am appalled. I believe that the fans of sports teams should stand behind their team and not try to be the GM.

I do agree that these players need to settle down. But I have faith in them, as they get older (and out of their teenage years), that they will grow up. As for trading them, I say no. If we trade them (I’ve heard that our coach tried to trade one of them, but, it’s just a rumor), it just shows that we just want to pass them off to the next team and so on. It will teach the players nothing, only that we didn’t want them.  It won’t teach them to change, or to channel their passion and aggression in a good and beneficial way. I have confidence in them, because, another player on our team used to be as bad as them, but, as he got older, he was able to channel his emotions into being a positive thing for the team, and helped them out (even if he still did the occasional stupid thing).

All I have to say to rather impatient (myself included) hockey fans, is wait. Let the coaching staff  handle this and see if the players in question here return more mature.  An idea for Coach is if  you can’t handle the player, do what Brian Burke (GM of the NHL’s Toronto Maple Leafs) did – bring in a police chief, and have him talk to them about

Maple Leafs, one of the best NHL teams

being responsible, http://video.mapleleafs.nhl.com/videocenter/console?catid=802&id=121143.

Aug 5

Why the NBA should go into a lockout


Let me just start off by saying that I am not a NBA fan. I used to be a fan of basketball, but, in the past few years and since I’ve become a fan of hockey, my liking the sport has just sort of  stopped.

Hockey is so much better

So, with the work stoppage going on, I know a lot of people are upset by it, but, I’m not. I can live without basketball. Here’s why:

  1. the number one sports team in Portland

    It’s likely that fans of the Trail Blazers will be looking for something do during the lockout. You know, there’s a talented (as much as the Blazers, maybe even more, but, I’m biased) hockey team called the Portland Winterhawks (Last year, they scored five goals in a minute and fifty-nine seconds in Spokane, who had a good year last year, too, and two blow-out wins: 8-2 against Tri-cities (http://winterhawks.com/video/index– on February 5th), and 9-1 versus Seattle)

    the sports team that should be the number one sports team in Portland

  2. maybe the Oregonian  and other newspapers will feature something other than the blazers on the front page of the sports section.
  3. maybe the sports TV/radio broadcasters will talk about something other than the Blazers, you know, like the Winterhawks (who made it to their league finals last year, and will look to go to the Memorial Cup, the Stanley Cup of  Canadian Major junior Hockey)
  4. We won’t have to deal with the crazy antics that the giant ego-ed basketball players (Lebron James, Kobe Bryant, just to name a few)  seem to bestow, or the things that they would have said (Lebron)
  5. Along with more fans paying attention to hockey, equals a boost in TV ratings. For instance, the Stanley Cup finals last year were apparently just as interesting as the NBA Finals (I don’t know, I didn’t watch the latter.) Guess which one got move views in the U.S.?

I know of a lot of people  who will be disappointed if the NBA looses it’s season due to the lockout. I’m glad that I was not a hockey fan when the NHL had it’s lockout, even though only the NHL was locked out. I don’t know how I would have lived through it.

Part two is coming tomorrow, don’t worry basketball fans, it will be arguing  the downside of the lockout.

 

Apr 9

Hockey (and its fans)


Shouldn't you want to cheer for them so that they might be more willing to call things in your team's favor?

I find it funny how many fans (especially fans of the Portland Winterhawks) complain about the referees, and how terribly they call the game. Okay, I agree that sometimes they don’t call what should be called (but, I am biased, I admit). I would like to ask the fans, have they ever attempted to call a game, much less a hockey game? Most likely no, so, in other words, back off. Complaining is going to do nothing. It’s just annoying. I also find it funny how most of the fans that are complaining, are adults. Really? I think that it’s okay to acknowledge that the game was terribly called, but, then, get over it and move on to the next game! Finally, maybe, the hit or whatever was clean and not worthy of being penalized. Be like the players (who don’t spend a lot of time contemplating the game, I mean, they do talk about it and figure out what they need to do better) and move on.