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| Photo by Matthew Manor / LA Media |
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| Vancouver NW Giants win silver at Mac’s tourney |
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By Adam Dunfee /
One might be the loneliest number but two is the cruelest.
For the second straight year, the Vancouver Northwest Giants lost in the final to finish in second place at the Mac’s AAA Hockey Tournament. Last year, it was a 7-0 defeat at the hands of the Russian team Severstal; this time it was the Calgary Buffaloes knocking them off 6-5 in double overtime.
Giants coach Jon Calvano says that the overtime loss hurts less then last year’s loss, especially because know one really expected the Giants to equal what they did in last year’s tournament.
“We knew going into the tournament we’d be in tough,” says Calvano. “Considering we’ve got 14 15-year-olds, five 16-year-olds and only one 17-year-old with only two returning kids from last year, we felt that just being able to compete would be good for us.”
The Giants were down two goals twice to the Buffaloes in the championship but rallied to take a 5-4 lead in the third period before the Buffaloes tied it. In the second overtime the Giants went down two men and the Buffaloes potted the winner. The two OT calls, a high-sticking call to Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and an interference call to Brady Brassart, didn’t sit well
with Calvano.
“Obviously I’m biased but (those were) not double overtime championship game penalties,” he says. “I’ve watched a lot of NHL playoffs and Western Hockey League games and there are some penalties in overtime of a championship series game that just don’t get called and these weren’t justifiably championship double overtime game penalties; they might have been second period penalties, not double overtime penalties.”
But whatever frustration the team had about the way they lost it isn’t evident as they continue to roll through the B.C. Major Midget League. Through the first two weekends of play in 2009 the Giants have gone 2-0 (one weekend was their bye week) and sit with a record of 22-1-3 good for first place in the league.
The most interesting race though won’t be for top spot it will be for the last playoff spot. The North Island Silvertips currently hold down the sixth and final playoff spot after sweeping the Valley West Hawks in their two game series on weekend 15 and in the process jumped two spots ahead of the Hawks for that coveted final playoff spot.
“I was really happy with the back-to-back efforts,” says Silvertips coach Rob Milliken. “We’ve struggled to play well in back-to-back games all year and I thought we did it (that) weekend better then we have all year.”
Milliken says the key to staying in playoff position will be winning games against teams lower then the Silvertips in the standings.
“If we focus on getting the wins we need too and hopefully stealing some points from those teams ahead of us then we should hopefully be able to hang on.”
OF NOTE
The Giants weren’t the only BCMML team to play at the Mac’s Tournament. The Silvertips, Hawks, Vancouver North East Chiefs, Cariboo Cougars, Okanagan Rockets and Greater Vancouver Canadians also participated but only the Giants made it into the playoffs round. |
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