Good morning from the Queen of Burnaby enroute to Powell River. A beautiful sunny day to make the crossing. As we departed, we were treated to a fighter jet of some sort from CFB Comox doing laps around the boat. It's one of the reasons I love going to the games in Powell River. It is always an adventure of sorts where you see some cool stuff. People that have followed the blog all season might remember the video of the Orcas I took on the Ferry ride coming back from Game 1 of the season.
Fast forward to today.
Its a huge early turning point in the Coastal Conference Finals with Game 3 tonight in Powell River. A 2-1 lead for either team after tonight has to be a powerful motivator, so I think we will see a heck of a contest tonight.
You can catch the pregame show at 6:45 on 93.3 The Peak FM with Rick Schievink and myself from the Powell River Rec Complex with the play-by-play to follow at 7:00.
BCHL Commissioner John Grisdale will be my Second Intermission guest as he talks about the experience of watching the first 2 games of this series in the Dog Pound, the Interior Final, the Burnaby Express move - and more, so be sure to tune in.
There is a nice number of Dogs fans on the boat this morning, hopefully more are coming this afternoon!
And here's hoping the people of Powell River will come out and support the Kings to get that great atmosphere back in that building. I have been lucky to have called a handful of games in the rink when there has been 1000 or more people in attendance and it makes for a fun experience and a great game.
Funny enough as I write this a young trio of kids just walked by me on the boat chanting "Kings Kings Kings" after they saw my Bulldog track jacket. Tell your friends to go to the games guys!!
Hammer
Sent wirelessly from my BlackBerry device on the Bell network.
Envoyé sans fil par mon terminal mobile BlackBerry sur le réseau de Bell.
11 comments:
Oh wow - I didn't think that Rick ever went on the roadies, is that just for playoffs? Rumour around the pound was that everyone enjoyed Bruce when he was on board too. Great to have a good back up when you need one. GO Dogs GO!
Go Dogs Go!!! Thanks for the all updates Hammer! I apperaite it alot :)
Not to be a negative Nel, but you stayed in comox last night. You could have stayed in Port Alberni last night and saved some cash and not have to pack your bags again?
Rick went to some road games either last season or the season before. Since there wasn't playoffs back when Rick was doing colour then this is kind of new territory. Bruce did Game 3 in Nanaimo and did a great job! Rick did games 4 and 6 and has made his way to Powell River for games 3 and 4.
I'm not sure what you are talking about Nel....and where I stay at night isn't really anyone business...but I in fact did stay in Port Alberni last night to tend to some family stuff. I left early this morning to catch the ferry. Thanks.
Should be a fun one tonight.
Hahahaha. What the hell? Why would it matter a hoot where Hammer stays or doesn't stay? Thats just bizarre.
I would have liked to see a 6 pm start for the games. That way we could have gone over and still made it back for work.
To me the Powell owners missed the boat so to speak. At the end of the day this is a business. And more asses in seats the better.
Was not referring to you, Hammer.I read it as the whole team was staying in Comox. Sorry for the confusion.
Hammer I hope you don't feed easy questions to this Grizdale character.
The boys, teams coaches and trainers, not to mention communities. All put out a huge effort. To have questionable reffing is ridiculous. I hope you ask him. How they pick the refs. Why Refs are allowed to travel on the same bus as a visiting team. And what do they do when their is obvious gross missed or non calls.
Also calling the game is tough we all agree. But if you are going to let something go one end you probably shouldn't call it in the other end.
Don't let him give you the political answers. Such as our refs work hard, they do their best or we are always trying to improve.
Neither team needs to be robbed.
Buy a team and you can put them up wherever you want. Why do you care? I'm pretty sure Dennis and the boys can afford the hotel costs.
And they are doing what they see best suits the players.
Hammers. Can you also ask grizdale why they can't Change the start times. I would think its too lae this year but in the future.
About the start times....
Here's one for you. A couple of years back an owner of an Island based BCHL team (not the Bulldogs) came up with an idea to get the Island teams to band together with the hopes of gathering a large lump sum of money to give to Powell River on the condition that they change their game times so teams could get back to the Island at night.
The thought was - they would pay out a large lump sum out front to appease the Kings and make it worth their while financially, while it would also be worthwhile for the teams as they would save money long term on hotels and meals.
The idea died away, probably from lack of support from the other Island teams or from lack of approval from the Powell River Kings, or from the BCHL.
Here's my opinion on why the Kings don't change their game times so teams can get out of town. Now - this is just MY opinion, no research or anything done on it, so don't take it as anything more than my personal theory....
If the Kings change their start times so everyone can get out of town at the conclusion of the game, how much money does that make the local hotels and restaurants lose?
These are the same hotels and restaurants that most likely also provide the Kings with corporate support financially.
Just a guess, but I bet the Kings get more in dollars back from those sponsors than they would dollars from increased attendance. Except of course unless they were playing Alberni all the time :)
It's a viscious circle. If the Kings are looked at by the business community locally as a group who has taken money out of the town's pockets, you can bet they won't support the team financially when they were of course making a big portion of their dollars (at least during the off season, the hockey season) off of BCHL teams using their services. So then the Kings suffer financially with lost corpororate support.
Just a guess.
About Mr. Grisdale. I didn't ask him anything regarding officiating. Not because I don't think there isn't a problem with quality and consitency and assigment of officials, and because I don't think that the work the officials do isn't always up to par... I don't ask those questions because all you get are political answers, and I don't want them and I know the listeners don't want them either.
In John's defense, what do you expect him to say other than what you would get: "the guys are trying their best, we are trying our best"
I just hope that this is indeed the case, for the sake of the players and for the sake of the fans because we all deserve it!
I must say I have a bit of a problem with the continual diet of Mainland officials, especially when the Dogs are now playing a quasi-mainland team who had Mainland based refs for most of their games. But that can go one of two ways and you never know what you will get.
I will say this - having officials coming from the Mainland while there is a WHL official sitting in the rink watching the game not getting assigned to work is more than a little bit interesting. Then again, I'm not the guy making the decisions on who works games and who doesn't.
That's enough blogging for me I'm afraid, hope I answered some questions. Meal time, nap time, and prep time for tonight.
Hammer
Thanks for the answers Hammer.
You assumption seems more than plausible. As for the Ref's, Lets hope it goes well. And it's not too goofy.
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