On the Friday night before Halloween the Giants got a treat and a bit of a trick as well. The ice was distinctly tilted toward the Kelowna end all night long as the Okanagan squad took penalty after penalty, which was the Giants treat but the trick was Kristofer Westblom who turned away 49 shots in the loss and out and out robbed more than a few Giants players throughout the game. To illustrate this point, in the second alone the Giants peppered the Rocket net with 28 shots, while holding the visitors to zero shots and came away with only one goal.

The game started with a bang as Garet Hunt was busy yapping prior to the drop of the puck at Cody Almond. The two doffed the lids and shed the gloves 4 secs into the game and went at it. Hunt got some shots in early, but Almond did not go down and fed a few back, but in the end even after the combatants smashed one another up against the glass, Hunt came away with the marginal victory. The Giants took the first couple of penalties after it appeared that the refs were going to let some calls go early in the game, but after that it was all Kelowna until the end of the first when Franson garnered a double minor for high-sticking on an incredibly late call, with the whistle blowing after the Giants handled the puck for several seconds and got off a shot, confusing the fans as to who was being sent off the ice. The G-Men got on the board mid-way through the first on the Giants first 5 on 3. Jason Reese, who had pretty soft night over-all shying away from giving and receiving checks, got the puck back to Jonathon Blum who fed it across to Franson for the one-timer. The puck found its way through traffic to the twine and Westblom didn’t see it until it was in the net. The home team out-shot the visitors 12 to 4 in the first and ended up 1-0 for their efforts.

The second was crazy as the Rockets spent almost the entire period on the PK. They gave the Giants 8 PP chances in the second to their 1. Its lucky Westblom was between the pipes because although the G-Men didn’t have consistent traffic in front of the Rocket ‘tender they managed to fire 28 shots on him and hold the opposing players to the goose egg. The Giants would squeeze only one puck past Westblom in the middle stanza at 16:33 of the period, on the PP of course. This time Milan Lucic got the puck to Blum, who would garner his second assist of the night off the play. Blum drifted the puck across to Brent Festerling and the usually defensive minded D snapped the puck into the back of the net to put the G-Men up by two. Once again Westblom probably never saw the shot, as he seemed to be stopping everything he did see.

The Rockets seeing that they were still only down by two played a better game in the third hustling to the puck and taking less of those lazy and careless penalties against. They would also manage to past double digits on the shot clock as they threw 9 shots on the Vancouver net. The G-Men would put the score up another notch off of some great forechecking by Dulle, Hunt and Wright, who were an energetic fourth line and played a perfect grinding game in the corners. Dulle worked the puck out to Hunt who was standing virtually on the goal-line below the face-off circle. Westblom, with one of his only misplays of the game, cheated for the pass and was surprised when Hunt rifled it behind him from the sharp angle for the Vancouver squad’s third goal of the game. Dustin Slade must’ve been falling asleep as the Kelowna team managed to squeeze a very soft goal five-hole off of a short-handed breakaway to ruin his shut-out bid, but that’s as close as the Rockets would get on this night. The Giants took the play back down into the Rocket zone and with time ticking down JD Watt would storm the net and appeared to kick in a puck off of a nice feed from Festerling. There was a definite kicking motion but from my angle the puck could actually have gone off JD’s opposite shin pad from the kicking skate. Surprisingly, the ref was right there and emphatically pointed at the net to indicate a goal, so it’s possible it went off of the other leg. It was an odd one tonight and I don’t think I have ever seen a second period like the one I watched tonight as Westblom made some sparkling saves and put the thought of Kelowna keeping Yeomans out of my mind completely, very deservedly earning the first star in the process.

The Giants went 2 for 13 on the PP, while holding their opponent 0 for 5. The shots by the end would be 53-13 for the Vancouver squad and if not for the stellar play and quick glove of Westblom probably would have got more than four goals against. The Rockets are sporting a good goal tandem of Kristofer Westblom and young rookie ‘tender Torrie Jung who lit up the lower levels last season. They have lost a lot of their veteran fire-power and have a young defensive crew, but they played a hard Jeff Truitt kind of game and were actively blocking shots and clearing lanes for the majority of the evening. Seems hard to believe but it was good hockey tonight as the effort was there for both squads, but the Giants pressure and their defensive prowess held the Rocket players at bay. In other fisticuffs, Milan Lucic crushed James McEwan in fight late in the third as the Rocket player took a flurry of shots to a point where he had to hang for dear life to stop the beating – oddly this was prior to the Rockets getting their shorthanded goal.

The Giants are about to embark on an extended road trip, which should test their mettle against the four Alberta teams and the Spokane Chiefs who are struggling on special teams at the moment. The G-Men are hoping to bond further while on the road, and they begin their journey tomorrow night (Sat. Oct 28th) in Spokane before taking a scenic tour through the central division challenging all the Alberta teams in the process. The Giants are currently on a 10 game winning streak at the Coliseum and have only lost once away from their barn this season and they boast a remarkable 14 0 1 0 record as of this evening.

Puck drops in Spokane 7pm PDT. Make a note that daylight saving time ends as of Sunday Oct 29th – so all the other games will be around 6pm PST, and 7pm MST. Also note that the Friday Nov 3rd game versus Medicine Hat will be shown on Shaw cable, at 7:30pm MST.

Three Stars
1 – Kristofer Westblom
2 – Cody Franson
3 – Spencer Machacek