Glacier Kings Win

It wasn’t pretty at times but the Comox Valley Glacier Kings won their first game of the season, a 4-1 triumph over the Westshore Wolves. Comox came out of the gate flying and took a 2-0 lead into the intermission thanks to a pair of Willie Daigneault goals. Despite getting outplayed in the final 2 periods, the Icemen would outscore the Wolves 2-1 in those final 40 minutes. Jake Mckenzie made it 3-0 in the 2nd period while Willie Daigneault scored an empty netter to complete the hat trick and seal the game. But it was the play of goaltender Matt Henwood that would steal the show. Henwood stopped 46 of 47 shots for the victory. Westshore outshot Comox 40-13 in periods 2 and 3 combined. The victory gives the Glacer Kings a 1-3-0-0 record and drops the Wolves to 1-2-0-1. Another tough night for Westshore as they could easily be 4-0-0-0 this season with a couple breaks. The GKings are now tied for 3rd in the North Division with the Oceanside Generals who almost came back but fell short in their game. The Generals fell behind Saanich 5-0 but came roaring back to make it a 5-4 score. Oceanside is also 1-3-0-0. Our 3 stars tonight were #1- Matt Henwood, #2- Willie Daigneault, #3- Jake Mckenzie. Cole Amado’s interview has been posted in my “Interviews” section. I haven’t posted any of the goals yet.

Other observations:

• Dayton Keith played in his 100th junior hockey game.
• Austin Heidt started the game as a forward but finished as a defenceman.
• Defenceman Scott Arbuckle was either hurt or benched for the last half of the game.
• Damian Rennie and Dayton Keith played their first games of the season.
• Scott Rademaker was a healthy scratch as he was in Joey Ewing’s doghouse for missing practice.
• The Glacier Kings scored first for the first time this season (which was also their first lead of the season) and they also scored their first power play of the young year.
• Before the contest, the Generals borrowed one of the Glacier Kings practice jersey’s for their back up goaltender. AP Ben Duffin didn’t have a jersey so he used backup goaltender Luke Sheldrake’s #33 and Sheldrake had to borrow practice jersey #84 from Comox.
• My goal call for Willie Daigneault’s hat trick goal into the empty net is lost forever. Our audio feed apparently got disrupted with just under 3 minutes left in the game. It was a beauty call (just ask Randall Heidt). At least the video was still there.
• The Glacier Kings have now killed off 11 straight penalties after allowing 3 goals on their first 11 penalty kill attempts to start the season.
• Matt Henwood’s GAA went from 4.02 to 3.22 after the game and his save percentage went from .876 to .912.
• I discovered that I called the “play by play” in 2 games back in 2009 that Wolves new head coach Tyler Matheson played in. I was living in Saskatchewan doing radio “play by play” for the Humboldt Broncos and we went to the RBC Cup in Victoria that year. The Grizzlies (the team Matheson played on) got an automatic berth for being the host team. He remembered the second game against Humboldt but not the first so I had to remind him of both. Humboldt opened the round robin against Victoria and beat the Grizzlies 2-1 by scoring a short-handed goal with one second left in the 3rd period. The 2 teams met again in the semi-finals and this time Humboldt scored with 3 seconds left in the first overtime period to knock the Grizzlies out. He remembers that game as well as I do.
• All the Comox players and staff got their pictures taken by a photographer before the game for upcoming programs, hockey cards etc. Here is coach Joey Ewing getting his picture taken. I laughed telling him he was a diva until he turned and got the photographer to take a picture of me. (Well played Joey.)