Nick Jermain and Boston Bar: Improbable Grizzlies Destiny in 2016

In spite of starting the year with a record of 1-10 when this Grizzlies season is finally all over and sports writers sit down to dissect the year, I doubt many will remember the name Nick Jermain. The fact is that this Merritt Centennials forward might just go down as one of the most significant opposition players to have positively impacted a Grizzlies season in quite some time.  Few as well will remember a broken drive shaft bearing under the Grizzlies bus in Boston Bar, BC on a snowy Saturday night in January, but that too could prove to be of equal significance in a year which never ceases to amaze this writer.

 

Last Saturday night as the Grizzlies were travelling over the Coquihalla Connector after losing 5-0 to the Penticton Vees, Connecticut born Nick Jermain was busy just a few kilometers away as his Centennials trailed the visiting Alberni Valley Bulldogs late in the 3^rd period by a score of 2-1.  Had the score stood up, the Bulldogs would have overtaken the Grizzlies in the standings that night and taken over that 4^th and final playoff spot.  It was a massive moment for the Grizzlies and yet few if any Victoria fans had much knowledge of the name Nick Jermain.  With less than two minutes to play, it would be Jermain who would score for the Centennials with his team's net empty in favour of the extra attacker and force overtime.  Then, just moments into the first OT period Jermain would score again, denying the Bulldogs that vital second point of the night.  Alberni would remain tied in points with the Grizzlies at the conclusion of play on what to most would view as just another day in the regular season.  For Grizzlies fans, the moment was simply enormous.

		GP	W	L	OTL		PTS		GF	GA	DIFF	PCT
1	xy - Nanaimo Clippers	56	36	18	1		74		226	183	43	0.661
2	x - Powell River Kings	55	32	19	3		68		208	156	52	0.618
3	x - Cowichan Valley Capitals	56	27	23	3		60		182	191	-9	0.536
4	Alberni Valley Bulldogs	56	21	27	4		50		166	197	-31	0.446
5	Victoria Grizzlies	56	23	29	4		50		163	167	-4	0.446

 

(*even the league's web site shows the Grizzlies in 5th spot in the Island Division Standings which are so tight and confusing even BCHL computers can't get the tie-break formula straight.)

The Grizzlies now enter play in this final weekend of regular season action tied with Alberni Valley in points.  However the Grizz still enjoy the razor thin advantage of the first tie breaker by virtue of having won more games than the Bulldogs on the season.  Had the aforementioned Jermain not scored late in that 3^rd period, the Grizzlies would now trail the Dogs by a single point and no longer be in a position to control their own destiny.  Perhaps at no time in franchise history have the Grizzlies ever been involved in such a dramatic and potentially cataclysmic conclusion of a regular season.  With precisely two games left to play for each organization, the Grizzlies and the Bulldogs will each try and play their way into the 2015/16 BCHL playoffs with the winning prize being a first round matchup against the offensive powerhouse, Nanaimo Clippers.  To some that may seem like quite the underwhelming prize for such a daunting task, but for a Grizzlies team who essentially started the year with a single win in its first 11 games, that will probably suit them just fine.  Call it fate, but it’s just been that kind of a year.

 

This final chapter will all get underway on Friday night as the Grizzlies will host the Powell River Kings, a team with whom the Grizzlies have enjoyed some relative success thus far in 2015/16 with a 5-2 season series lead.  Powell River, secure in 2^nd place and with nothing to play for in terms of playoff position, will come to Vancouver Island with the ability to play the role of either “Spoiler” or “King Maker” for the Grizzlies or the Bulldogs.   The Kings will finish the weekend with two contests in Alberni Valley at the Weyerhaeuser Arena on Saturday and Sunday after they play the Grizzlies Friday night at The Q Centre.  The Grizzlies will travel to Chilliwack on Sunday to play a Chiefs team who have also secured their playoff fortunes and have nothing to play for other than perhaps a little momentum in preparation for a First Round matchup against the Coquitlam Express.  But that 4pm Sunday Chilliwack game if you remember, is only happening as the very last game in the entire league by virtue of a broken bus in Boston Bar.  The Grizzlies were scheduled to play the Chiefs that night, 16 Jan if you recall.  With half the team sick with the flu, plus a few nagging bumps and bruises and coming off the longest day of bus travel in the year after departing Prince George the night before, I for one did not like the Grizzlies chances.  Remember that they lost the previous encounter against the Chiefs in the Bauer Showcase in September by a 4-0 margin.  But as luck would have it, the Grizzlies bus for the first time in franchise history would fail to deliver the team to its game night destination and the game would have to be rescheduled.  We will never know but maybe, just maybe that was a blessing in disguise that broken drive train, that broken bearing.

 

Grizzlies minority owner Mark Wagstaff does not visit the broadcast booth very often, certainly not on the road.  But the following day in Surrey he popped in to the booth during pregame and told me something which I will likely never forget:  “You know, what’s so strange about that broken bus last night?  In all those years that I owned Penticton, the Salsa and the Grizzlies, not one time in over 25 years had any of those teams ever failed to make it to a road game.  Not one time did we ever have to cancel a game.  Not even once, very strange.”   Very strange indeed.  That game could prove to mean absolutely nothing, or it could turn out to be a very useful insurance policy for the Grizzlies come 4pm this Sunday afternoon if things don’t go perfectly on Friday and Saturday.  Is that fate, luck or destiny?  Or is it just a bad episode of Twilight Zone?   

 

The Grizzlies “Magic Number” now sits at just 2.  Any combination of a Grizzlies win and a Bulldogs loss will send Victoria into the playoffs.  But the Bulldogs’ “Magic Number” sits at 2.5 games.  Thank you Nick Jermain and thank you broken bus.  If the Bulldogs lose both games to Powell River this weekend, that too will achieve the “Magic Number” of 2 no matter what the Grizzlies do.  I said three weeks ago, just prior to the Cowichan Valley game that in order to qualify for the post season, the Grizzlies would need to win 3 of its final 6 games or play exactly .500 hockey and that prediction looks like it may run true to form. 

 

With a crescendo of 4 goals in Period #1 last Sunday vs Langley, the Grizzlies held serve in the Island Division standings and got that second vital win of its six remaining games.  The first goal in Langley came by way of The Plumbers.  Crashing the net hard was Joey Visconti, after a Spencer Hunter rush, Visconti put away a goal mouth loose puck and gave the Grizzlies the early lead.  Then it was up to Keyvan Mokhtari who buried a Brayden Gelsinger rebound top shelf to make it 2-0.  It was the young rookie’s first goal since 17 Dec, 2015 but none of that mattered to a Grizzlies bench which erupted in adoration of the BWC product who was helping his teammates see their playoff hopes suddenly restored.  The next Grizzlie goal would come by way of the extra man on a perfectly timed Ovechkin like one-timer by Dante Hahn from an equally beautiful cross-crease pass by Gelsinger.  It was Hahn’s 3^rd PP Goal of the season and it put the Grizzlies up 3-0, all in a weekend devoid of much offense where the Grizzlies had failed to score against Penticton on Saturday night and in a 2-1 loss to Wenatchee on Friday. 

The massive Sunday first period onslaught by Victoria would end with Nathan Looysen of the VIJHL Victoria Cougars, scoring his first goal of the season in a Grizzlies uniform and the rout was on.  Looysen, who won the VIJHL Scoring Championship this year with 101 points, looked fantastic all weekend in Grizzlies white, black and yellow-gold and took his goal well having already picked up an assist on Hahn’s PP marker earlier in the period.  Mitchell Benson would turn away all 24 Rivermen shots and collect his first shutout and fifth win of the season in front of a disappointed Langley crowd of 1,358.  Benson was solid all night and will likely feature in the backup role to Matt Galajda this weekend as the Grizzlies attempt to ice out the 2015/16 regular season and earn that final playoff spot on the island. 

 

The regular season will end at Prospera Centre by virtue of the Grizzlies first ever cancelled game on 16 Jan, 2016

Four games, two for the Bulldogs and two for the Grizzlies and three of which will feature perennial playoff matchup team the Powell River Kings are all that separate an early end to the season or a trip to the big dance.  Call it what you like, crazy, ridiculous and unnecessary or just plain exiting.  No matter what, there won’t be a single true Grizzlies fan anywhere on the globe this weekend who won’t be paying close attention to every second of action in this most tumultuous of final games for the club.  And if the Grizzlies eventually do indeed qualify for the playoffs, likely few will ever remember those strange quirky moments which could end up deciding the team’s fate.   It just may be that the way this season will finish could come down to a couple of very late out of town goals on a Saturday night in the smallest building in the BCHL, the Nicola Valley Memorial Arena in Merritt BC, with goals scored by a Connecticut hockey player named Nick Jermain.  Well that and a troublesome bearing under a team bus in a little place called Boston Bar.  Talk to you all on Friday night from the Q Centre. -CC        

A Titanic Season If There Ever Was One: 2016 Grizzlies

To say that this past weekend was a bit of a rough one for the Victoria Grizzlies would be a massive understatement.  Facing the #5 Interior Division, Merritt Centennials on Saturday night and the #1 Mainland Division, Chilliwack Chiefs on Sunday afternoon, the Grizzlies came away with nothing but two more losses on the weekend's action.  They now sit in a tie at 46 points for the final playoff spot in the Island Division with Alberni Valley after a Bulldogs win on Sunday.  Yes times are certainly tough at the moment.  The good news is that now the club only has to worry about preparing for its unquestionable toughest road trip of the entire season: Cowichan Valley, Wenatchee, Penticton and Langley.

#2 Chuck Bennis wasn't the only Grizzly who had his hands full on Sunday afternoon vs The Chiefs

I have been asked by many of you in the last several days about what my thoughts are about this now season high 7 game losing streak.  Every time I start to form a thought about it all I can see is that notoriously famous image of Joe Namath on the sidelines of that Monday Night Football Game with Suzy Kolber many years ago.  "Suzy, the Jets are struuugellllling."

Joe Namath's famous moment with Suzy Kolber on MNF

Poor Suzy.  I always felt so bad for her in that interview.  But she handled it like the true pro that she is and Namath soon got sober and it all worked out in the end, but I digress.

You know I had more than a few conversations over the weekend with some hockey people around the league about the Grizzlies.  Let's just call them "unnamed BCHL sources" and leave it at that.  As I was trying to map out the current situation as I see with the Grizzlies, I kept going back to the RMS Titanic.  Yeah, that's right, the Titanic, the Royal Mail Ship Titanic.

A long series of errors was all it took to send Titanic to the bottom in April of 1912

Don't worry my metaphor confused the hell out of everyone else, you're not alone.

Believe it or not, many years ago I used to be a card carrying member of get this:  The Titanic Historical Society.  I am sure that they still exits somewhere and I don't have either the time nor the inclination to Google them at the moment.  But back in 1981, I was very proud to have had this little card in the sleeve of my wallet with my name on it.  The card read "Titanic Historical Society, Chicago Illinois".  Truth be told, I am only about 90% sure that they were out of Chicago but I don't really think that its all that important to my story.

For the past week or so now I have been noticing all these little things that the Grizzlies are not doing quite so well.  Sometimes its a big thing, like a bad penalty or sometimes its something small and subtle like a shift which went on just a bit too long.  It might be an injury or a mental lapse. Sometimes its something which happens on the ice.  Sometimes its something off the ice.  Sometimes its something I sense on the road or maybe something I see around the Q Centre.  It doesn't really matter, but I can see it.  I have even seen a few things in the Broadcast Booth that Yours Truly would like to do over again, if I am being honest.

It will take more than just #12 PJ Conlon scoring in 6 of his last 10 games to secure the Grizzlies a playoff spot

Do you know why almost 1,500 people died one night in April of 1912 in the frigid waters off of Newfoundland in the worst maritime disaster in history?  It wasn't just because of an iceberg.  It wasn't just because Fredrick Fleet up in the Crows Nest that night arrived on watch to discover that there were no binoculars for the lookouts to see approaching ice.  It wasn't just because Captain Smith (under great but subtle pressure from his bosses who were onboard) ordered that ship travel at top speed in an area know to have ice just so that a speed record to New York could be set.  No it wasn't just that boastful desire to provide The White Star Line with newspaper headlines to please its shareholders which killed all those passengers and crew.

Those people on the Titanic didn't lose their lives just because her builders, Harland and Wolff had failed to place the vertical bulkheads high enough to stop water from spilling aft should the forward part of the hull be breached.  It wasn't just the rivets from Belfast which were made of a cheaper steel to increase the profit margin in the great ship's construction.  Those people didn't die that night just because she didn't have enough lifeboats either.  And perhaps most tragic of all, it wasn't because a nearby ship, the SS Californian, who was in visual sight of Titanic as she slowly sank, had turned off her Morse Code radios for the night because the regulations in those days permitted such lunacy.

Passing ships mistakenly thought Titanic's distress flares were mere company signals and paid no attention as disaster loomed in the still and frigid waters of the North Atlantic

No, sadly the tragic lesson of the Titanic was that it took all of those things and many more to conspire to sink that great ship and send all those poor souls to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.  You see, it wasn't just the one thing that went wrong that night.  It was a little bit of all those things.

And that's where the Grizzlies are at the moment.  They are a club who are struggling through a very tough slump to be sure, the worst stretch in many years and one which could cost the team a spot in the BCHL Playoffs.  In my humble view, the Grizzlies are dealing with a whole bunch of little things quite frankly, none of which are going right at the moment.

Whatever the issues are, the answers are in that organization, not just the Dressing Room.  A 7 game winning streak in January is proof that the ability to win is still very much in place.  But everyone and I do mean everyone, over these final six games will need to pull a little harder and do his or her job just a little better than they did yesterday.  We are each going to have to stop feeling sorry for ourselves and simply get on with it pure and simple.  And that includes me too by the way.

I like that line from that Stanley Kubrick 1987 film, Full Metal Jacket.  "Yep, this is one big sh#t sandwich and we're all gonna have to take a bite."

Actor R. Lee Ermey, a former USMC Drill Instructor, ad libbed most of his lines in Kubrick's classic tale of Vietnam   

So I hope that you will all follow along in this final chapter of the Regular Season as the Grizzlies fight for their very playoff lives.  I will certainly do my part to keep you appraised of how it goes.  My sense is that the Grizzlies will find a way to make sure that Fredrick Fleet has a good pair of binoculars before he goes on watch. I also think that the Captain will exercise good judgement as he negotiates his hockey club through a treacherous ice field on a moonless night, without even so much as a breath of air.

And when the whole tumultuous season is over, no matter what happens, I think I might just look up that group of geeky Titanic enthusiasts with whom I used to swap stories with way back in the day. I wonder if they will charge me very much for a membership card which I suspect is very much in arrears?  Until then I will talk to you tomorrow night from "The Stick" in Cowichan.  -CC

Grizzlies Mid Summer Report - Main Camp Coming Soon

It’s hard to believe but in less than three weeks, Grizzlies Main Training Camp will open on Friday 21 August in Colwood and the excitement is already beginning to build.

 

But before we get into that, there are a couple of formalities to get into before we start to examine the club, the proposed roster and new talent which will culminate with the main Training Camp.  First off, we have to mention the lease.  After a long and nearly unprecedented set of protracted negotiations, the West Shore Parks and Recreation and the Victoria Grizzlies came to an agreement on a lease deal in June. This guarantees that the Grizzlies will remain as the primary tenant at The Q Centre for the next five years.  This news is win-win for both organizations and thanks should be passed along to both parties, but let’s step back for a minute and look at the big picture for a moment.  That deal could have easily gone south. If it did, I don’t even want to imagine what the implications would have been, but I can tell you it would not have been good news for Grizzlies fans, that is for sure. 

 

The “so what factor” in all of this is that for the very first time in many seasons, the Grizzlies are now set and secure in terms of all the key support areas.  The team has a solid and committed ownership and Front Office, an established and successful GM/Head Coach and Coaching Staff, a set and experienced Back Room Staff. But now underlining all of that is a secure 5 year building lease deal which will ensure the viability of The Grizzlies in The West Shore for a minimum of five more years and likely much longer.  That institutional stability is something the club has been seeking for many years.  This year the Grizzlies will start a season with all four of these pillars in place which should set the conditions for success for not only this year but for the long term.    

 

Next, let’s take a quick moment and say proper farewell to three players, one of whom I accidentally missed in my last Grizzlies Gazette Blog in May.  That player of course is Goaltender Sean Cleary.  The Massachusetts native is returning to his home state this fall after inking an NCAA commitment to The University of Massachusetts-Lowell, so congratulations and good luck to Sean.  Next is the Grizzlies leader in Plus/Minus from last year and that of course was rock steady D Man, Zach Dixon.  The tall, stalwart Californian 20 year old defenseman signed a college commitment with the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point on 2 July and will play hockey at that school next season, so good luck also to Zach.  And by the way, Zach’s signing brings the team’s number of college commitments for last year to nine which makes 26 in the past three years, so well done to the organization and the players themselves with all the scholarships and commitments, that’s quite a haul.

 

Lastly, we must say farewell to last surviving member of the original 2014/15 Hands Line, #9, Garrett Forster.  Garrett was traded to the West Kelowna Warriors earlier this month for Brayden Gelsinger (95) who comes to the Grizzlies from the Warriors and previous to that, the Cowichan Valley Capitals.  Forster had many good years here as a Grizzlies player, but my favorite moment will always be his OT game winner last December.  His Bobby Orr like end to end rush vs the Merritt Centennials on Teddy Bear Toss Night was very special.  That wild rush which included jumping over a discarded stick while enroute to the Merritt net after beating all five Centennials skaters produced a thrilling 8-7 Grizzlies OT win.  The stick jump was but one of the many moves he made during that play which will stand for some time as one of The Q Centre’s most exiting moments in recent memory. 

 

That said, we want to open our arms and welcome Brayden Gelsinger to the Grizzlies.  The former WHL player is entering his 3^rd year in the BCHL after successful stints with the West Kelowna Warriors and the Cowichan Valley Capitals.  His BCHL career spans some 111 games with 26 goals, 68 assists for 94 points for a very impressive 0.85 ppg average.  Gelsinger will be a welcome addition to the club.  I can say that after following him in the league over the past two years, I look forward to seeing him his ply his dangerous offensive skills throughout the Island Division this coming season.   

 

Now, back to the present.  After all the dust settled it would appear that no more than seven players who were in Grizzlies uniforms in March during the BCHL First Round vs the Powell River Kings remain with the club at the time of the writing of this report.  While roster spots are far from decided with a Main Camp still to come, one thing is for certain.  At the very best, only Kevin Massy, PJ Conlon, Nick Guiney, Spencer Hunter, Mitchell Barker, Cole Pickup and Cody Van Lierop are left as potential returning veterans after the departure of no less than fifteen members of the 2014/15 Grizzlies.  In the coming days I will write a feature article to map out some of the specific changes as a preview of Main Camp, but suffice to say, there will be a significant amount of opportunity with several openings at all positions in the lineup.  This should be one of the most intriguing and mouth-watering Main Camps in several years and after talking to several Grizzlies fans this past summer, the buzz is already back.

 

Home Exhibition Games are scheduled for Sun 30 Aug vs Cowichan Valley Capitals, Tuesday 1 Sep vs Nanaimo Clippers and Saturday 5 Sep vs Alberni Valley Bulldogs.  Reverse away fixtures for all those teams feature in and around those specific dates.  Hope to see you all there. -CC

Grizzlies Mid-Season Report Card: B

General Overview:

 

After winning the Island Division Championship last year and only narrowly missing out on advancing to the Fred Page Cup, expectations were high for the Victoria Grizzlies coming into this season.  Yet it starts to become clear that the Grizzlies are a team full of contradictions.  On the one hand the team is 13-10-0-5, good for a .554 winning percentage, and in 4^th Place in the Island Division, still in contact with the division leaders, but they have let too many games slip away all year. At first glance you might say that a record like that is one of an underperforming team, especially when you consider where they were last year.  But looks can be deceiving.


Photo Credit: Christian J. Stewart

Remember that the Grizzlies have already completed two road trips into the Interior to play those statistically superior teams, a feat no other Island Division club has done thus far.  Remember also that this team lost not one, not two, but all three of its top point getters from last year. Remember too that the Grizzlies changed almost all defensemen from a year ago and lost both goalies, including LA Kings NHL draft pick, Alec Dillon to the USHL’s Tri City Storm.

 

So there is the first major contradiction. They may appear  to be underperforming to some degree, but to seasoned BCHL analysts, its pretty clear that the team has faired well considering. Remember this Grizzlies team has faced the BCHL’s runaway favorites, the Penticton Vees twice this season already. Yes they lost both games, but it was with a combined aggregate score of 6-4. And in the second game they went to Double OT and earned a point. With all that in mind, here is how I see the club at the hallway point:

 

Offence

 

When I speak of offence, I am mostly talking about forwards but not exclusively. A quality attack is usually only as good as the first pass out of the zone, so the defensemen do fall under this heading to a degree.  The Grizzlies boast four players, Gibson, Mackie, Gruber and Forster all of whom are averaging over a single point/game and there are two more players who are very close, Matt Kennedy (0.9pts/gm) and D man, Meirs Moore (0.8pts/gm).

 

Photo Credit: Christian J. Stewart

With 100 goals scored in 28 games, the team is averaging 3.57 gls/gm and on track for a goal total in the neighborhood of around 207 goals. In comparison, last year with the Fitzgerald triplets and breakout rookie forward, Jesse Schwartz, the Grizzlies scored 212 times. In 2012-2013, the team only scored 189 times. In other words, one year removed, the Grizzlies offence hasn’t missed a step and in fact is more potent that the 2012/13 squad under then first time Head Coach Bill Bestwick. Both those teams were strong in the BCHL playoffs. In short, the Triplets have been capably replaced and this team spreads scoring around its roster very well.

 

Statistics aside, the team has two very capable lines who can often score for fun when they want. The third line has changed many times, but recently has featured what I call “The Rookie Kid Line” with 16 year old Spencer Hunter centering Mitch Barker and Ayden MacDonald. The line I am really keen on however is the 4th line. I predict that this recently assembled line of P.J. Conlon, Cole Pickup and Nick Guiney will play a significant role in the playoffs as they have shown great promise so far. They are not a typical grinding 4^th line, this group can score and could move up a slot to earn 3^rd line duties.

 

Defensemen Meirs Moore, Zach Dixon, Kevin Massy and newcomer Jake Emilio have all contributed well offensively from the blue line. Moore is silky smooth and Dixon has a cannon.

 

Grade A- (Trend: Status Quo)

 

Defense:

 

The only defensemen remaining from last year’s squad is Kevin Massy. That depleted group alone should be cause for serious concern. But in September, then GM and Head Coach Brad Knight though different.  He chose to deal Victoria natives Brandon Egli (53-11-24-35) and Mitch Meek (45-1-18-19) to Vernon for 20 year old offensive D-Man Jake Emilio and former Richmond Sockeyes rookie forward, Ayden MacDonald.  It would take weeks to get a look at Emilio who arrived injured in the deal, but in time he has proven to be a capable and confident puck moving defenseman.

 

The remainder of the players on the blue line have done remarkably well considering how almost none of them really knew one and other before Main Camp in August.  Enter 20 year old Duluth Minn native and BCHL rookie, Meirs Moore, a smooth passing and skating defender who oozes confidence. The talkative, Moore has quickly become one of the key Quarterbacks on the PP along with the more subdued but hard hitting and hard shooting Zach Dixon. Chris Harpur, Cody Van Lierop and Justin Sadler round out the D Corps well, with solid stay at home play. They are all solid.

 

Photo Credit: Christian J. Stewart

 

The knock on the defense though is really an admonishment of the entire team this year, the goals scored against. At 107, it is simply too high for a team this good, a team which only averages 10.86 penalty minutes per game. That GAA is too high and represents the Grizzlies biggest challenge in the stretch run to the playoffs. The GAA has slowly been trending upward all season and this trend must change. Fire Wagon hockey games like the 8-7 OT win over Merritt may please the fans, but it won’t win anything over the long term. The 10-4 road loss to Trail was clearly unacceptable, but so too was the defensive performance they showed when they hosted Trail two weeks later, albeit winning 6-5. 

 

While goals against are obviously not entirely a function of the defensemen alone, the Grizzlies have a bad habit of scrambling in their own end when fore-check pressure is heavy and sustained.  The new coaching regime of Craig Didmon will no doubt address much of that in the coming weeks, but a holistic team approach to this problem is required.

 

Grade B (Trend: Improving)

 

Goal:

 

With the departure of 6’6” Alec Dillon in the offseason along with his heir apparent Nick Renyard, the Grizzlies literally had a big hole to fill in net. Returning from the 12/13 Season, the Grizzlies re-acquired Michael Stiliadis and then picked up 19 year-old newcomer, Sean Cleary. Cleary has shown moments of brilliance in 11 starts (3-5), especially his 15 Nov start at West Kelowna where he faced the daunting task of leading the team on the road after the aforementioned 10-4 loss the night before in Trail. In spite of the loss, Cleary was very strong and kept the team in the game late, helping earn the team’s only point during that forgettable Interior swing. Cleary needs more starts and he should get more as the team moves into the stretch run.



Photo Credit: Christian J. Stewart

 

Stiliadis (10-10) is your prototypical BCHL net minder, quiet, prefers to be out of the lime light, but works hard in practice and can be relied upon night in and night out. He is also capable of making the really big save. But Stiliadis sports a save percentage of .874 and while that is very close to his 12/13 numbers as the Grizzlies #1, his GAA this year (3.90) is almost a full goal higher than that of Cleary (3.15). Stiliadis is much better than those numbers bear and he along with the rest of the team in front of him need to bring those numbers down moving forward.

 

Grade C+ (Trend: Improving)

 

Special Teams:

 

The Grizzlies' PP lead the BCHL in efficiency for nearly the entire first half of the season. It now sits firmly in 3rd position at 25.42%, an excellent number, especially considering the departure of the Triplets who often made PK units look foolish over the last two seasons. This PP unit is simple, it doesn't get too fancy, it moves the puck very well and involves the point appropriately, never holding on to the puck too long before taking an intelligent shot on goal.

Photo Credit: Christian J. Stewart

 

The Penalty Kill (10th in BCHL) is also a sound unit, even without PK specialist Storm Wahlrab who is sidelined for the next 2-3 weeks. The PK sits at 78.33%, which is OK, but remember this year the PK boasts no less than 7 SHGF and last year the club could only muster 4 SHGF on the whole season. This unit could easily score well over 10 short handed goals before the playoffs start. And remember, when they think of the PK unit, most people forget to subtract those "Shorties" from the totals for Goals Against on the PK. That correction changes the math around significantly and it is what most coaches use to properly assess a team's PK in the pros.

 

Grade A (Trend: Improving slightly)

 

Coaching and GM Moves

 

The elephant in the room which nobody wants to acknowledge is that the Grizzlies, aside from the Vipers's quiet pre-season Head Coaching change, were the first team to change coaches.  The move was a massive shock to many, myself included. I wish Brad Knight well and he spoke well recently to local media in his departure interview, he will be back in this league one day. That said, I wasn't at the Nicola Valley Arena on 19 Oct, 2014 when the Grizzlies lost in the dying seconds in OT. I will never know what really happened after the game, but the team's Head Coach was suspended 3 games by the BCHL after that game and that fact is simply unacceptable for any Head Coach in any league.  A leader must always keep his head.  In summation, clearly things were not all well "down at the Circle K" and a regime change was inevitable.

 

Now let me preface everything I am about to say by acknowledging the fact that I don't see the team books. But simply from a business model point of view, I wasn't initially a big fan of the trade with Vernon and I am still not. I like Pete Zubersky as a hockey man, but when he came in to take over last December in the wake of Bill Bestwick's sudden departure, the team promised a return to recruiting local island talent and bringing the team closer to the Westshore community.

 

Then quick as a flash the club did two very strange things. It went out and immediately brought in a large number of off island talent.  But then it made a very strange trade moving two local products away. Those were local players who would not incur billet fees and they were traded for two out of town acquisitions who do indeed cost the club billet funds. True, Zubersky is no longer with the team, and the trade I question was a Brad Knight move. But the effect on the team budget both from new billet fees and a departure of the Egli/Meek family and friends must be felt to some degree.  To sum up, I criticise the move from a business model point of view and also because it sent a mixed message of "Say one thing, do another".

Photo Credit: Christian J. Stewart

 

Now GM and HC Craig Didmon is back, technically for the third time and already he has brought in Nick Guiney, a local JDF product. Good start. In just two games he has demonstrated an ability to right the ship and has shown the capacity to quickly restore confidence and fun on the bench and I suspect the Dressing Room. That is huge.

 

Players are smiling again and while it is only a 2-0 record under Coach Didmon, the team has already seen a modest bump in attendance.  And that last statistic, attendance, is really the most important stat of them all in many ways and could tell the tale of how this team does moving forward.

 

Grade: F (Trend: Improving significantly)

 

Summation:

 

For a change I will be brief. This team has an identity now. The Grizzlies are now officially "that team I sure hope we don't face in the playoffs."  I guarantee every Island Division team, aside from Cowichan (unlikely to make playoffs) now feels that way about the Grizzlies. Nobody wants to run into this team, which is slowly but surely improving in every area of performance and has a restored confidence throughout the entire organization.

 

If the goals against can drop even just a bit and if the scoring keeps up, the Grizzlies will catch most of the leaders in the Island Division and will likely finish well above 4th spot before the playoffs start.

 

Overall Team Grade: B (Trend: Improving) -CC

 

 

 

      

Drama Kings Return On Teddy Bear Night: 8-7 Grizzlies Over Cents

On the bus ride home from Cowichan on Friday night, there was a moment where I though that my Drama Kings narrative was perhaps dead. If you read this blog, you know the narrative well: big leads become small leads or tied games, late goals force Overtime situations, huge Grizzlies comebacks which don't seem possible end up happening, shutouts and EN goals are few and far between, coaches lose hair or they turn prematurely grey and lost of goals, lots of constant high drama.  That's been the narrative this season. And I gave it a name: I call them the Drama Kings.  They are literally the Kings of Drama.

But late on Friday night as the Grizzlies Team Bus Driver Jason leaned hard on the bus horn exiting The Island Savings Centre I had other thoughts. Jason of course was doing this as a point of formality and ceremony to inform any living soul within miles of The Big Stick that the victorious Grizzlies were leaving town. Right then as the horn finally stopped blaring, to the shock and horror of the local townsfolk, but to the school boy giddy delight of the twenty-one young men in the back of the bus, I suddenly though: 6-0 Grizzlies? This isn't the Drama Kings? This isn't the narrative?

No, this was supposed to be Game #1 under returning Head Coach, Craig Didmon and clearly, Coach Dids was having no part in all of this Drama Kings nonsense. Apparently the game plan going in featured Five Big Points and each and everyone was fully met. Oh well, I thought, I will never complain about a win and it sure was nice to see Michael Stiliadis pick up his first Shutout of the year. It was in fact the team's first Shutout on the season as well. Far less dramatic teams usually have more than a few Shutouts by the mid season mark, but not the 2014/15 Grizzlies. Maybe it will just have to be ok if the Grizzlies develop a new identity and if it involves less drama and a few dominant performances, well that's ok.

But last night after the Merritt Centennials visit to the Q Centre, as I stared down at the ice and watched the Grizzlies pour over the bench to mob a celebrating Garrett Forster, after his incredible OT game winner, I started thinking about the Drama Kings again. Because there if there ever was a word to describe the hockey game I had just witnessed, dramatic would certainly be the word.

In a fifteen goal game, its kind of tough to describe all the scoring but I will do my very best. Here is a quick synopsis of how the game went: Grizzlies score and teddy bears rain down from the rafters, Cents answer, Grizzlies retake the lead and Merritt ties it up, Grizzlies score again and Merritt comes back again with a couple more to take lead for the first time. And that was just the first two periods! You didn't know it at the time but that was only half of the scoring you would see in this wild barn burner down at The Q. Seven more goals would be scored in the 3rd Period. It short this game was nuts, absolutely crazy.

This hockey game witnessed three lead changes and seven game tying goals including a shorthanded goal by Merritt forward Gavin Gould with no less than 9 seconds left in regulation time to force the OT. The game was a wild firebrand style of hockey which if word gets out, could soon restore the typical 1,300-1,400 fans you tend to see on normal game nights in the Westshore. You kind of knew something was up when Cliff Lequesne missed his "One Minute Left In The Second Period" call at the end of Period #2. He never does that. Who knows, maybe he was a little busy down there in the Centre Broadcast Room.

You think?

Yeah, I think I am going to give my buddy Cliff a bit of a Hall Pass on this one. He was very likely just as busy as myself and my Play-By-Play partner Scott Didmon up top. You might say that we had a little bit on our minds at the time. We actually ran out of room to write, there was that much game information flying around. On several occasions in the third period, we both looked at each other in total disbelief about what we were seeing. As for Storm Wahlrab and Cody Van Lierop both in the Press Box on the evening, those players, powerless to affect the outcome, were simply beside themselves throughout the game. I kind of felt bad at times to tell you the truth, they're both just great young men. By the time of the OT it was almost cruel.

Here are some stats which tell the tale: This game featured no less than 16 of 18 Grizzlies players registering at least a point, both opposing goalies with nearly identical save percentages at around 76%, 13 different goal scorers in the hockey game and can you believe it, four goals scored within 60 seconds of one and other.

This game had everything. I say that because I am usually one of the last people to leave the building on game nights. It comes with the job. And I am pretty sure I saw the Q Centre Zambonie driver, Tom, clearing up a kitchen sink which had somehow managed to find its way onto the playing surface during the melee after Garrett Forster finally dispatched the visitors with his eventual game winner in OT.

With the Grizzlies competing with the Westshore Santa Truck Parade in full force outside and all along the Old Island Highway, the 945 fans who did make their way into the Q Centre on the night, certainly left the building happy as the noise in the arena was certainly the loudest of the season thus far. The Q Centre was rocking all night. And as for The Teddy Bear Toss, well it didn't take too long to rain down. Just 38 seconds in was when #8 Brett Gruber would score on the PP and get the building rocking. If you were paying attention, that early goal might have been a harbinger of good things to come on the night. Two and a half hours and 12 goals later, the fans would be on their feet in elation as the Grizzlies found their figurative Drama King crowns just in time and wore them with pride.

The Grizzlies will now get seven days off and likely enjoy the break before they are back in action next Saturday night at the Q Centre as they host the Powell River Kings. Three nights later on Tuesday 16 Dec, will be the team's first "Toonie Night" as fans can get into the building for only a Toonie. Now if you will excuse me, I would write more, but I just talked to my doctor and she wants me to come in for a quick blood pressure checkup. Apparently long term exposure to The Drama Kings is not so good for emotionally invested people like myself who have bought in hook, line and sinker on this amazing hockey team out in Colwood.

Do check out this great video by Roy Anthonisen and our crack Grizzlies Video Team at: youtube.com/watch?v=NJdS6k2ESxg&feature=youtu.be …

Oh and if any of you see Tom around the rink this week, tell him I will grab that kitchen sink off him if he still has it. I am in the middle of a kitchen reno at the moment and wouldn't mind saving a few bucks. See you next Saturday everybody. - CC