Friday notes

The Eastern Conference final started last night with the Lethbridge Hurricanes claiming a 5-2 victory over the Calgary Hitmen, taking home ice advantage away from Calgary in the process. I thought 5-on-5 the teams matched up reasonably well but the Hitmen were done in by some bad penalties which lead to three powerplay goals by the Canes.

Calgary started Martin Jones in net and he was.....ordinary, giving up four goals on 19 shots. He was ordinary in game six against the Broncos too although he won that one. No big-time goal-preventing stops from him in either game, just the routine saves. I would look for the Hitmen to go back to Dan Spence tonight for game two. It's way too early to ever call a game two of a seven game series a must-win, but if the Hitmen lose tonight as well they will be down 2-0 with the next two games in Lethbridge. So tonight is probably about as close to a must-win for the Hitmen as a game two can ever be.

(And, I gotta correct the Calgary Herald's John Down, who states in his lead to today's game story that the Hitmen are trailing a series for the first time this year. Uh, they lost game one against Swift Current just two weeks ago too)

Speaking of scheduling, they still haven't announced the schedule for games 5, 6, and 7 of the Hitmen/Hurricanes series because Calgary's building availability depends on the Flames' playoff schedule. After the Flames-Sharks game last night, I believe that after Sunday, the Hitmen won't have to worry about the Flames anymore. But, the Saddledome is wide-open all week anyway (see the schedule) and it is impossible for the Flames to have home ice even if they did make the second round, so why can't a date be picked for game 5 on Friday or Saturday? C'mon already.

On another arena note, I'm not much of a basketball fan so I haven't been following the saga of the NBA's Seattle Sonics moving to Oklahoma City very closely. So, I was a little surprised to learn today that the move may be occurring already this summer. Which makes me think....the Sonics will likely leave soon, and we know the Thunderbirds are leaving Seattle for Kent around midway through the next WHL season. What is the city of Seattle going to do with KeyArena? Won't the only big tenant left in that building be the WNBA - if you can ever call the WNBA "big"?

The WHL Western Conference final starts tonight with game one in Kennewick. These two teams are longtime rivals and finished 1-2 overall in the league, so this should be a heckuva series with the winner likely being the favourite to win the WHL title over whoever wins the Calgary/Lethbridge series.

The WHL has announced Colton Yellow Horn as the Western conference finalist for Player of the Year.....so here's my picks for who I think will win the various individual awards this year:

Player of the Year:
Eastern Conference – Karl Alzner, Calgary Hitmen
Western Conference – Colton Yellow Horn, Tri-City Americans
My pick: this is a pretty tough call as these are both dominant players at their respective positions. I do think though that Alzner really has no peers as far as defencemen in the league go, while Yellow Horn does have a number of other forwards in the league who are in his area code. Alzner is also a year younger and plays the more difficult position, plus he also captained Canada to a World Junior gold medal. So, Alzner gets this one.

Goaltender of the Year:
Eastern Conference – Linden Rowat, Regina Pats
Western Conference – Chet Pickard, Tri-City Americans
My pick: Maybe the easiest pick of all these.....nothing against Rowat but Pickard wins this award hands down. It could be argued that Rowat wasn't even the best goalie in the Eastern conference this year, let alone the league.

Defenceman of the Year:
Eastern Conference – Karl Alzner, Calgary Hitmen
Western Conference – T.J. Fast, Tri-City Americans
My pick: Maybe the 2nd-easiest pick. Nothing against Fast either but Alzner is the best all-around defenceman the WHL has had in a few years. He is dominant and will be in the NHL by Christmastime next year, if not earlier.

Rookie of the Year:
Eastern Conference – Brayden Schenn, Brandon Wheat Kings
Western Conference – Evander Kane, Vancouver Giants
My pick: Kane is going to be a really good player in a year or two but he was a supporting player offensively on the Giants this year. Schenn wins the award because he was the offensive go-to guy and leading scorer on the Wheat Kings. As a 16 year old, that is really saying something. By the time he is 19 (if he's not in the NHL by then), Schenn is going to be nearly impossible to defend in this league.

Nice, too, to see the league settle on two 16 year olds for this category instead of picking some of the 18 and 19 year old "rookies" they could have gone with, like Jamie Benn, T.J. Galiardi, Jim O'Brien, etc.

Most Sportsmanlike Player:
Eastern Conference – Tyler Ennis, Medicine Hat Tigers
Western Conference – Colin Long, Kelowna Rockets
My pick: The point totals are close, the PIM totals are closer. So, let's go to the PIM stats, 'cause I'm a stats geek. They each got two 10-minute misconducts, they each had four roughing minors, and they each had one unsportsmanlike conduct minor. Long had one fight while Ennis had none, which might put Ennis ahead, but Ennis had a double-minor for spearing which isn't very sportsmanlike either. Boy, this is tough. I think in the end I have to pick Long - several more points and one less PIM.

Funny though how the most sportsmanlike player candidates always seem to be a couple guys with really high point totals and somewhat smaller PIM totals. I mean, I think you could make a case that the league's most sportsmanlike player is actually Justin Dowling of Swift Current, who played 71 games and got only 4 PIM while recording 27 points. Or, for that matter, Alzner is another good candidate here as he picked up only 15 PIM despite playing 25-30 minutes a game against everyone's top line.

Coach of the Year:
Eastern Conference – Michael Dyck, Lethbridge Hurricanes
Western Conference – Don Nachbaur, Tri-City Americans
My pick: Oh, this is a hard one....they are both deserving of this award, really. These are both teams that few observers would have picked for top-five status at the start of the year, but they both ended up there in the end. Dyck's team underwent a lot more mid-season changes though which requires more work from the coaching staff to get everyone on the same page, so I think I'm going to give this one to Dyck, but by the smallest of margins.

Executive of the Year:
Eastern Conference – Kelly Kisio, Calgary Hitmen
Western Conference – Bob Tory, Tri-City Americans
My pick: No question in my mind here, Bob Tory. What he has done there with taking a struggling team that almost moved and turning them into a #1 overall team is amazing. Kisio's teams have been perpetually strong for a few years now but have not yet won anything to show for it.