After going undefeated in pre-season, including being the only team to win all of their games in the 3rd annual Everett pre-season tournament, the Vancouver Giants were hoping to make a statement in their home opener. The night began with the franchise raising three banners to the rafters, the first in Giants history. The banners were BC Division Champs, Western Conference Champions (both white) and The WHL Champions of the league (red). The ceremony mollified the already dismayed fans at what the Giants were calling a replica banner but was in fact a crappy piece of cardboard with the 2006 WHL Champions on it and did not even come close to living up to the hype of a replica banner – truly pathetic effort and gesture and they would have been better not to make any gesture at all than to hand out those pieces of future trash.

11,000+ strong then witnessed the Giants take advantage of the more stringent officiating, as they walked all over the Portland Winterhawks; shelling their opponent with 44shots and garnering nine goals. It really did feel like the Giants had acquired a hunting license to slaughter the usually elusive Winterhawk. They did so by simply blowing up the bush the winterhawk was hiding in, rather than sniping at them from a blind. There were no trophies left to take home after tonight’s game as the Vancouver team obliterated their competition. The G-men ticked every scoring category except tallying a shorthanded goal, notching goals, four-on-four, on the PP, and even strength.

A lot of preseason talk was that the Giants lacked high level scoring, but they proved that they had scoring depth tonight and dispelled that myth by getting goals from throughout their line-up and from the blue-line. The Vancouver Giants are a well-balanced all-around team who play a simple clean game and go out on the ice to work every shift and they are rewarded. This is Don Hay’s philosophy, and Don Hay hockey.

Poor Dustin Butler was in net for every single one of Portland’s goals against. I don’t know what he did to be in the coach’s doghouse so early or maybe the coach was sending the message to the rest of his team, but in the end the ‘tender was forced to suffer the onslaught without respite.

The Giants went 4 for 18 on the power-play as the Winterhawks continued to take lazy penalties and got caught scrambling in their own end and held Portland off the score sheet while weathering 9 penalties of their own.

The game began as a tight game with the Winterhawks going up early 6-0 in shots. However, a couple of sloppy plays later the ice shifted and the Giants began to swing the momentum to their side. The first period ended scoreless but it was clear that the Giants had woken up and were ready to break out. The first ended with the Giants leading 14-9 in shots.

JD Watt opened the scoring taking a Jason Reese feed down the ice on a breakaway and in the process breaking the seal on the Portland net. And broken it was as the Giants stormed the Winterhawk net and tallied two more goals in the space of 52 seconds and then sniping another 1:20 after that on the power-play. The early goals came four on four and it was clear what the G-Men could do when they had the open ice to work with. Watt, score on the breakaway. Machacek scored off the cycle. Lamb snapped home a nifty feed from Milan Lucic. And Watt scored again right on the doorstep. Late in the period again on the power play Machacek tallied another goal, off of Blum and Repik and then Tim Kraus scored a goal with 1:20 left in the second off of Lamb and Franson to cap off the G-Men’s 6 goal explosion in the middle stanza.

Mitch Czibere redirected a shot from Jonothon Blum just 39 seconds into the third period and the fans knew the massacre was not over, and like sharks smelled blood in the water. About 3 minutes after that Cody Franson snapped a seeing-eye puck from the point past a screened Butler giving the Giants an 8-0 cushion. Remarkably the Giants did not sag throughout the game and continued to play smart hockey to the final buzzer. Mario Bliznak managed to get a piece of a nice Lucic wrister when the Giants chalked up their fourth power-play goal, and ninth of the night. It was then that I heard the crowd engage in the most bizarre chant I have ever heard at a hockey game and expect never to hear again. “We want ten! We want ten!”

There were two referees on the ice tonight (Herman, Nissen) and although I might get some argument from the Portland fans they called a very fair and balanced game, while still consistently keeping with the new mandate of calling what would have been considered soft penalties at times last year but were still valid. Not a great proponent of the two referee system I have to say that the refs did not clutter the ice and made clean and clear calls from the opening drop of the puck and I was frankly impressed how little I noticed them even with the parade to the penalty box through out the game.

Dustin Slade looked like a little kid out there as he skated heartily after each Giants goal, and jumped up and down with obvious glee. He was still full of his usual rituals and antics, but was rock solid, if not very busy, in net robbing more than a few Winterhawks to earn his first shutout of the season, turning away 19 shots for the donut. I guess he’s anxious to beat his career best 11 shutouts from last season and figured an early start would be a good way to go. Let’s hope his enthusiasm is catching as we watch the Giants storm through yet another season of clean crash and bang hockey.

[b]Three Stars[/b]
1 – Cody Franson
2 – Jonothon Blum (yes that’s how he spells his first name)
3 – JD Watt