Three games in three nights can be a tiring ordeal especially when you are up against two of the top three teams in the Central division and the other one just a day earlier. The Central is proving to be one of the tough ones top to bottom. The newest team to the division the Kootenay Ice sit fourth of five in the Central division while boasting 11 wins this early in the season. Its very likely one of these three teams will be challenging for the WHL title and Memorial Cup honours at the end of the season. The G-Men dropped their first one in regulation in a lack lustre effort against Red Deer on Wednesday and came back to beat Medicine Hat in O/T Friday after squandering a three goal lead and battling questionable officiating. Tonight (Saturday) they took on the Calgary Hitmen who currently sit second in the Central and are a much changed team from the disparate squad which was iced last season. Their third opponent, in three nights, tomorrow will be the Lethbridge Hurricanes who are the bottom feeders in the Central with a mere 7 wins. Although I just listened to the game it seemed to me to be one of those games where any mistake a team made was in the back of the net and the mistakes were few and far between on the night.

Calgary opened the scoring on the PP, at 6:56 of the first. Ryan White found Alex Plante in the slot and Plante made no mistake snapping it past Dustin Slade for the game’s first tally. Even though the Giants out shot the Hitmen in the first, the score would remain the same into the first intermission.

About five minutes into the second period Milan Lucic scored off of a rocket of a shot from the right face-off circle beating Dan Spence high to the stick and not only rippling but threatening to rend the mesh. The Giants would go up by one about five minutes later scoring on the PP. Kyle Lamb with his second in two nights put a puck past Spence assisted by Cody Franson (for his 28th pt of the season, as he had already garnered the lone assist for the Lucic tally), and Jonathon Blum. Its odd that the period where the Giants took the least shots (7) they scored their only goals of the game. In fact the second period has been very kind to the Giants team this season as they have been consistently out-scoring their opponents in the middle stanza, which seems to me to be a change from last season where their game would often dip in the second.

The Hitmen would tie it up early in the third when Brodie Dupont would make a beautiful inside move on some unsuspecting Giant D-man, and snap the puck past Slade. The Giants out-played the Hitmen in the third but Spence barred the door and made a few excellent stops to preserve the score. He made the saves he needed to make to keep his team in the game and keep them in he did. The two squads traded PP chances in the third but neither one was able to break the deadlock and the game went to OT and finally a shoot-out when nothing could be decided in the extra five.

Shootout ( Giants as away team start the shootout)

Kyle Lamb – crossbar from the blue paint Robert Figren -- forehand /backhand up over Slade Cody Franson – base of the post Ian Duval – missed the net JD Watt -- snaps a rocket high glove side Ryan White -- roofs a backhand

Hitmen win 3-2

The shots were 38-28 in favour of the Giants. The PPs were 1 for 9 for the G-Men, and 1 for 7 for the Hitmen. Dan Spence showed why he’s one of the top twenty goalies in the dub, stymieing the Giants on several sparkling opportunities, earning top star honours in the process. The Vancouver squad heads down the road to take on the Lethbridge Hurricanes Sunday at 5pm MST, 4pm PST.

Three Stars
1 – Dan Spence
2 – Cody Franson
3 – Ryan White