Want an idea of what the Memorial Cup experience is like? Well, upon heading down to the fan area prior to the game’s start, my first sight was a young blond man with dreadlocks on stage, rapping over the theme to Hockey Night In Canada.
That was a fitting introduction to what is a unique combination of hockey and entertainment.
Outside the arena there’s a little something for everyone before the game. There’s an enormous indoor/outdoor beer garden area. Inside there’s a stage where they were performing sound check on electric guitars, preparing for the eventual rock out. Five enormous television screens were placed along the walls, three tuned to the New Jersey-Cleveland NBA playoff game. In one corner was a walled-off Molson Canadian room, the door flanked by what can best be described as typical beer commercial girls.
In the courtyard, in addition to the dreadlocked rapper, there were all sorts of things to ogle. There were displays featuring memorbilia from all three major junior hockey leagues as well as Hockey Canada, with about a dozen trophys from the CHL there for viewing. There were kids taking part in just about every booth hockey game imaginable — hard shot, accurate shot, mini hockey, table hockey. Equipment and business reps also had their booths set up — one couldn’t walk more than 10 feet without someone trying to hand them a leaflet or a sample. In one area there was an ESPN-style set assembled for the Shaw TV pregame telecast.
Then there were the fans, who came from every corner of the CHL. I saw jerseys of just about every WHL team adorning fans, and there were several non-participating OHL and QMJHL teams also represented. The most frequent jersey, naturally, was that of the Vancouver Giants. But I suspect the Giants were largely outnumbered by all the other teams combined. It’s quite the hockey summit, bringing in fans of junior hockey, not just the fans of the teams.
Everett was well represented, unsurprising considering the Tips sold a few hundred packages to season ticket holders during the regular season. What was interesting was that the Silvertip jerseys appeared to be outnumbered by the Seattle T-bird jerseys, perhaps because of the rumored ticket selloff by Everett fans after the Tips were eliminated from the playoffs.
Onto the game. For two periods the game, played between the Giants and the OHL champion Plymouth Whalers, was exciting, if not exactly super intense. Play was wide open and went end to end, with both teams having a wealth of quality scoring chances. Three times Vancouver took the lead, only for Plymouth to tie it up on the power play. Five of those goals came during a nine-minute span of the second period.
However, the game really bogged down in the third period and there didn’t seem to be much enthusiasm amongst the crowd for overtime. Mercifully, Kenndal McArdle scored 5:06 into OT to end it, but typical of how the game was going it was a bad goal, set up by an ugly Plymouth turnover in its own zone.
Milan Lucic scored twice for Vancouver and James Neal scored twice for Plymouth. But for my money Vancouver’s Mario Bliznak and Plymouth’s Jared Boll, both grinders, were more effective. Vancouver’s Michal Repik was also good.
So how would Everett stack up against Plymouth? Based on Friday’s game, I’d have to say Plymouth is the better offensive team, with the Whalers being particularly dangerous off the rush. However, Plymouth is nowhere near as tight defensively as the Tips. I didn’t see anything that would make me think Everett would be overmatched. Too bad the Tips didn’t make it.
Some other tidbits:
– Plymouth’s jerseys a virtually indistinguishable from Seattle’s, with the exception of the logo.
– Even with a near capacity crowd of 13,428 at Pacific Coliseum, it still wasn’t as loud as the Everett Events Center on a typical game night.
– Couldn’t tell you whether it’s indicative of the style of play between the various major junior leagues, but several Plymouth forwards, Neal in particular, were cherry picking something fierce all game long.
– Former Silvertip Michael Wuchterl was up to his usual tricks for Vancouver, jawing with the opposition whether he was on the ice or not.
– Friday was the first time in seven attempts I witnessed a Vancouver victory. The Giants lost all six of their regular season meetings with Everett. Another loss Friday and I probably would have been barred when I tried to come back for Wednesday’s round-robin finale between Vancouver and Medicine Hat.
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