Coast Finals open tonight at Dog Pound, RBC Cup 2012, Island Radio to Broadcast Cyclone Taylor Cup....

Big thanks to Judy Bailey for the above picture - a big goal, the 4-2 goal in Nanaimo on Tuesday night. What a shot!

It's the Dogs and Kings kicking off the Coastal Conference Finals at the Dog Pound tonight.The Alberni Valley Multiplex has seen some great games and some great playoff action in the 8 years that the Dogs have been in the Valley, but never action in Round 3. Drop the puck already!

You can bet it will be a battle - the teams split the season series, three wins each in six games played. The Kings won the first two and the Dogs won the last two. The most recent meeting between the teams is the picture below, as the Dogs picked up a huge 3-2 win saw them win their 12th straight game away from home back on January 15th.

 

Get it all as always on 93.3 The Peak with Rick Schievink and myself with the pregame show kicking off at 6:40 tonight (we'll go five minutes early to get all the scene-setters on the series in) with the puck drop to follow at 7:00. If you aren't in PEAK listening range you can listen live on our website at www.933thepeak.com

Should be fun! We will see you at the Pound tonight!

Don't forget to WEAR RED, and don't forget to tune in to THE PEAK starting at 4:30 for Jolie reporting live on all the happenings in the parking lot - the 3 on 3 ball hockey tourney and Kevin Falkenberg and the Family Stone performing live under the tent!

 The Powell River Kings are of course the opponents for the Dogs - the defending Coastal Conference Champs. The Kings have won 5 in a row - Game 5 of round 1 vs. Cowichan, followed by a four game sweep of Langley in the second round. The Kings have had the advantage of scouting the Dogs in person as they haven't played since last Saturday. Assistant Coach Shane Luckinchuk was at the Dog Pound for Game 5 on Monday night, and Assistant Coach Chad Van Diemen was at the Frank Crane Arena for Game 6 on Tuesday. I caught up with Chad for an interview that we ran in the second intermission show of that broadcast as we talked about the Kings road to the Conference Finals, and their thoughts on either the Dogs or the Clippers as opponents. Not surprisingly, there wasn't any "locker room bulletin board" type material, just thoughts on how the Kings were preparing for a hard fought series.

Here's an update from Tom McEvay on the RBC Cup 2012 bid. Tom will join me on the second intermission show of the broadcast tonight to talk about this in further detail. 

Hi everyone, we are back from the RBC Presentation in Calgary and I wanted to give you all an update on our Bid for the 2012 RBC Cup.

The presentation to Hockey Canada in Calgary went very well yesterday. Our team of Andy Oakes, Colleen Sawyer, Ron Paulson and myself didn’t leave anything to chance. The search committee now know full well what we have to offer and the tremendous passion and credibility that we bring to the table. Thank you to everyone who worked on the bid and to those who assisted with the preparation of the presentation and particular to Stephanie Weber who put in lots of time helping prepare the power point. Thank you to Mike and Yvette Carter and their volunteers for handling the distribution of the support cards. Thank you to Peter Weinhold and the Graphics Factory for sponsoring the printing of the cards. Thank you to Rob Thompson at JAL for getting our team shirts ready on time. Thank you to Nancy Wilmot for producing the testimonials video that we included in the presentation and to all the people who spoke in the testimonials.  Thank you to Pat Deakin and David McCormick who were busy gathering supporting information.  Thank you to the Bulldogs, the BCHL and to BC Hockey for their support throughout.

Each of the four short listed communities ( Kingston Ontario, Humboldt Saskatchewan, Fort McMurray Alberta and ourselves) presented in different rooms at separate times so we had no interaction with each other. We have every reason to be confident that ours is one of the front runners but Hockey Canada cannot give any of the communities that information at this stage of the process. The search committee will now deliberate and determine what additional information they need. During the month of April they may visit some of the bid communities, although they do not see that as likely for us since they have such recent experience with Port Alberni and the 2009 World Under 17. During April there may be additional questions sent to us for response. In May the search committee will make their recommendation to Hockey Canada’s Junior Council. Junior Council will in turn submit their recommendation to the Hockey Canada AGM May 26-28. We have been told that an announcement will be made on or about June 1^st.

While we are very confident that we have every chance of winning this bid we are also realistic that other factors may come to play that are beyond our control. Hockey Canada has been clear that there is not a geographical rotation of the RBC Cup and that the event is awarded to the best bid. Realistically, however, if another area of the country has a bid equally as strong as ours and that region has not recently hosted an RBC Cup this could become a deciding factor since BC has had the RBC twice in the last 3 years with Victoria in 2009 and Prince George in 2007.  There may be other compelling reasons why one community may get consideration over another. We certainly feel that our presentation and our bid coupled with the tremendous success of the 2009 U 17 event and the fact that 2012 is the 100^th Anniversary of the City Port Alberni are all compelling factors in our favour.

I will endeavour to keep our committee, our supporters and the community at large informed of any new developments as we move forward. Thank you again to everyone who has contributed to our bid in any way over the past several months. I am proud to be associated with such great people, such a solid organization as the Bulldogs  and such a special community as the Alberni Valley. We are winners no matter what happens.

Sincerely,

Tom

(Image:PQBNews.com)

Here's a story on the Cyclone Taylor Cup that might be of interest to hockey fans around the Island. Read more - from the Parksville Qualicum News here.

Nice to see our parent company of Island Radio taking a leading role in supporting and promoting the event!

  


That's it for now!



Hammer