Rockets Left on Launch Pad While Birds Blast Off to Burnaby

South Island Thunderbirds, March 07, 2009

Glover!

If you say it like Seinfeld used to say “Newman”, you will have mastered the newest form of curse word that will undoubtedly be muttered regularly around Kelowna in the weeks ahead.  On Saturday afternoon at the Capital News Centre in Kelowna’s Mission district, “Glover” was the cause of sticks being smacked on the ice and punches being thrown at the glass around the rink, all in frustration as South Island’s goalie slammed the door shut on the Okanagan Rockets’ playoff aspirations.

16 year old Moose Jaw Warriors draftee Brandon Glover seemed to have found a higher level for his game back in December when he backstopped his T-Bird teammates to a thrilling 1 – 1 tie against the 1^st place Vancouver North West Giants and then performed brilliantly to earn All-Star recognition at the Mac’s tournament in Calgary.  He performed well for Moose Jaw in a pair of games in January and then continued to play well down the stretch in the BCMML’s regular season as South Island fought to secure a playoff spot.

On Friday night, he was excellent again in making 28 saves in his team’s 5 – 2 upset of the Rockets in the first game of the best two of three series.  But Saturday afternoon’s performance at the beautiful Capital News Centre arena was really something special, particularly in the game’s final four minutes when he stood up to successive two man advantage power plays for the Rockets.  In the end, he stopped 38 of 39 shots and ended the Rockets’ season as South Island knocked off Okanagan 2 – 1 to pull off a surprising (to some) upset of the league’s 3^rd place team at the Rockets’ “Mission Control” rink.

Playing with confidence after Friday’s victory, South Island started fast again in game two.  Sam Rice opened the scoring with a goal just 17 seconds after the opening faceoff.  After a dump in by Okanagan, Glover rimmed the puck around the boards to Ryan Matthews on the left side, who immediately spotted Rice streaking out of the T-Birds’ zone down the right side.  Matthews fired a crisp cross-ice tape to tape pass that hit Rice perfectly in stride at center.  Sam went around the last Rocket defender at the blue line and cruised in on a breakaway, finishing off the play with a wrist shot that slipped through the “five hole” of Rocket goalie, Conor Barrie.

Okanagan had a good plan for this day however, seemingly to press aggressively on the forecheck and hit every South Island defenceman and forward in the T-Birds’ own end, and the Rockets dominated the second half of the period.  After initially falling behind 7 – 3 in shots on goal, they got the last 12 shots in the period and tied the game 1 – 1 with 5:16 remaining.  On the goal, forward Quinn Gallacher came down the middle, took a pass from the end boards made by his teammate Tanner Burns and one-timed a “no-doubter” up high on Glover’s glove side.

From fairly early in the first period, it became an extremely physical game that favored the Rockets overall, as their superior size was used to full advantage to wear down the smaller T-Birds.  With Garrett Holt out with a broken arm, the Birds were forced to play with just five defencemen in this series and started to show some fatigue from the relentless pounding and the challenge of killing penalties.

The second period was scoreless but by the end of two periods, the Rockets enjoyed a 27 – 13 shot advantage.  The T-Birds showed a lot of heart to battle their ultra-aggressive opponent and in the latter part of the second period, they were more successful and reduced the Rockets’ territorial advantage.  Still, they needed Glover at his best to keep the score tied.

The Birds came out in the third period knowing that if they could manage to win that period, they would end the series while the Rockets were desperately trying to extend their season by at least one more day.  The first half of the third period was more even in play than the first two and the Thunderbirds started to take better advantage of the Rockets’ aggressive forecheck, getting the puck past the Rockets’ pinching defencemen more regularly and then deep into the Okanagan zone.  As aggressive as the Rockets were, they were exposed to the risk of giving up odd man rushes if the puck did get by the nearest defenceman.

The winning goal came on just such a play, and involved a two on one rush started by Sam Rice who moved the puck up to Ryan Matthews at center.  Matthews played the puck up to Wes Myron as he hit the blue line and Myron went wide right, carrying the puck right down to the red line, before throwing a centering pass back to Matthews.  The pass seemed to be tipped by either Barrie or his defenceman and it caromed off Matthews who was driving to the net.  There were no additional style points but that hardly mattered - the puck slipped past Barrie at 5:56 and South Island had the all important go ahead goal.

From that point, the Birds did a good job of keeping Okanagan under reasonable control until they took an unfortunate series of penalties that started with a soft slashing call on Josh Bloomenthal with just 3:56 remaining.  That penalty was followed by another to Matthew Sheeran for closing his hand on the puck to throw it out of the T-Birds zone with 2:30 to go.  Adding still more drama, Chad Roorda was called for tripping with 59 seconds showing on the clock.

On the resultant 5 on 4, 5 on 3, 6 on 3 (when Okanagan pulled Barrie in the final minute) and 6 on 4 man advantage situations for those last four minutes, the Rockets threw everything they could at the net to get the tying goal past Glover.  But Brandon made a series of outstanding saves, including a fabulous glove save off Cody Beach on a wrist shot from the slot, a great left leg pad save on a bullet slap shot from Tyler Parfeniuk walking in from the right point and a superb right leg pad save on a deflected slap shot.  Glover was helped by the gritty penalty killing efforts of his exhausted teammates, who blocked shots and did everything they could to clear the puck in those final few desperate minutes.

In the game’s waning seconds, the Rockets’ frustration boiled over and a couple of their players lost control, attacking Thunderbird players away from the play, smashing sticks and refusing to accept their fate quietly.  After the final whistle, one of the Okanagan players even fired a puck that narrowly missed South Island Head Coach Rob Milliken as he went out to join his players in the celebration of their series triumph.

When the dust had settled and the players were settled in their respective dressing rooms, Milliken was delighted with the gutty effort of his players, saying:  “Glover was definitely our best player tonight and we needed him to be at his very best to win this game.  But we had a great effort from everyone and this series victory is just as much about how well our guys supported each other and played as a team.”

With its first ever playoff series victory secured, South Island now moves on to a semi-final series against the league’s top team, the Vancouver North West Giants, who finished in first place with a superlative record of 33 – 3 – 4.  It will be another best two of three series that starts Friday night at the Burnaby Winter Club, where all three games will be played.  Game 2 will be Saturday and Game 3, if necessary, will be played on Sunday, all at times to be announced.

In their four regular season meetings this season, the T-Birds were 0 – 3 – 1 against the Giants but gave them a couple of great games, including a 5 – 4 loss on a last minute game winner in Burnaby in September and an exciting 1 – 1 tie in December at home in the Ian Stewart Complex. 

It should be noted that coming into this weekend’s series, the T-Birds had not beaten the Rockets before either (0 – 2 – 2) but with the two wins this weekend, the Birds have now gone 10 – 3 – 3 in the last 8 weeks.  Glover himself has gone 7 – 1 – 3 in his last 11 games so while there is no doubt about which team will be the prohibitive odds-on favorite next weekend, the Birds have plenty of reason to share Boston Celtics star Kevin Garnett’s optimistic view that “ANYTHING IS POSSIBLLLLLLE!”

In the meantime, grit your teeth and start practising:  “Glover”.

Bird Droppings:  In the other series played this weekend, the 4^th place Cariboo Cougars knocked off the Fraser Valley Bruins, also in two straight games.  The Cougars won 6 – 3 on Friday and then 5 – 1 on Saturday.  The Cougars now face the second place Greater Vancouver Canadians in Vancouver next weekend… The final shots on goal on Saturday favored the Rockets, with 7 – 6 – 9 = 22 for South Island and 15 – 12 – 12 = 39 for Okanagan… The T-Birds were assessed for a total of 28 minutes in penalties compared to 40 for Okanagan… The Birds were 0 for 4 on the power play and add difficulty adjusting to Okanagan’s aggressive penalty killing style.  South Island was a perfect 9 for 9 on the penalty kill, including 4 for 4 in the third period… The scoring summary for South Island included:  Rice (1G, 1A), Matthews (1G, 1A), Glover (1A) and Myron (1A).  For Okanagan, the scoring came from Gallacher (1G) and Burns (1A).