Victoria Grizzlies News
CLIPPERS SMOTHER GRIZZLIES IN OPENERFebruary 27, 2010 Sharie Epp ©Times Colonist - It wasn’t Canada and Slovakia and Olympic hockey, to be sure, but the Victoria Grizzlies and Nanaimo Clippers put on a fine playoff show at Bear Mountain Arena last night. The diehard fans, all 719 of them, who came out for the opening game of the best-of-seven B.C. Hockey League series were treated to Island rivalry at its best, even if Nanaimo took the first go-round 3-2. “It’s tough to lose a game, when you’re up 2-1. That hasn’t happened very often this year,” Grizzlies coach Victor Gervais said. “Hats off to them, they played a good road game. It’s frustrating, but that’s playoff hockey.” The teams return to Bear Mountain tonight, facing off at 7:15 p.m. for Game 2, then move up to Frank Crane Arena in Nanaimo for Games 3 and 4 on Monday and Tuesday. If other games are necessary, they’re scheduled for Thursday in Victoria, Friday in Nanaimo, and Sunday back at Bear Mountain. “[Tonight’s] a huge game,” Gervais said. “We’ve got to play a lot smarter. We’ve got to battle.” It was obvious from the opening face off that defence and toughness were the night’s bywords. Despite an early power play, the Clippers — all sporting bright orangey blond playoff hair — went more than 11 minutes before registering their second shot on net. “We want to dump and chip, and play physical all game long,” said Clippers assistant coach Chris Kestell, before the game. He and assistant Brett Bestwick were handling the Nanaimo bench, in the wake of head coach Bill Bestwick’s threegame suspension. “It’s a long series, and every bump you get in will help out in the long run.” Nanaimo’s plan was to go hard after Grizzlies backup goalie Colin Fernandes, who started in place of the suspended Ryan Holfeld, but the Grizzlies were ready. They slammed a security fence around the Victoria net every time the Clippers threatened. It was much the same at the other end, where the Grizzlies had the advantage of three power plays, but were able to get just six pucks through the blocking bodies in front of Nanaimo goalie Loic Boivin. “We’ve just got to get more pucks to the net,” Gervais said. “We had a lot of two-on-one and three-onone [set-ups], and we were trying to make passes that weren’t there.” The first period went scoreless, and the Clippers came out much more offensively minded in the second. The pressure, mostly from the dangerous top line of Cody Bremner, Teal Burns (both former Grizzlies) and Luc Olivier Blain paid off when Burns scored at 4:41. Rushes went both directions, but a nifty two-on-one play produced Victoria’s tying goal at 6:59. Closing in on Boivin, Spencer Copp passed across to Wesley Myron, but, instead of shooting, Myron dropped the pass behind to Jordan Heywood, who scored coming down the middle. Three minutes later, Madison Dias connected from the middle of the circle on a power play, and the Grizzlies took a 2-1 lead to the second break. But renowned for being a team that never quits, the Clippers came back, and started to break through the Grizzlies defences. Brayden Jaw tied the game on a power play at 10:46, and Colton Cyr, taking advantage of a rare mistake by Fernandes, put the visitors up 3-2 at 12:18. “It got away from our goalie. It was a lucky break, and their guy beat our guy to the net,” Gervais said. “You’re going to win and lose on mistakes, and that’s what happened tonight.” Final shots were even at 29-29.
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