Chiefs Best In The West; So’s Crowd

Tell yourself it’s early because it is.

Tell yourself the Tri-City Amercians can’t be this bad, because they aren’t.

Understand that the news isn’t all good because it isn’t.

But no matter how you cut to the point today, the Spokane Chiefs are best in the West.

With a 4-1 win over the Tri-City Americans Saturday night that was over in 12 minutes - only 10 minutes more than Mike Tyson needed to dispatch Peter McNeeley - the Chiefs

took a firmer hold of the lead in the Western Hockey League West .

Spotting the Americans a 1-0 lead, the Chiefs rolled to their fourth straight win after Randy Favaro, Darren Sinclair, John Cirjak and Trent Whitfield answered with first-period goals before a sellout crowd of 10,452.

Jason Podollan assisted on three goals, Sean Gillam helped on two and goalkeeper David Lemanowicz stopped 27 shots to take the sting out of the Americans’ power play.

Tonight the Chiefs try to build on a 9-2 record with their third game in as many nights. The Saskatoon Blades are here at 6 in the Chiefs’ new building, where Spokane is 6-0.

Of all the pleasant numbers you can crunch here’s the essential one: Spokane is 3-0 in their Highway 395 series with the Americans, one of two pre-season favorites to win the WHL West.

Tri-City came in with a seven-game win streak.

They left after going scoreless on 11 power plays and failing to match up with a Spokane attack that goes four lines deep.

That depth took another hit, however, when center Jared Hope took a shot to the face in the second period and left some of his blood at the blue line. Hope, who missed eight games to start the season with a concussion, suffered yet another concussion, coach Mike Babcock said.

It’s Hope’s third, it’s expected that he’ll miss some more time and it took some of the joy out of a night that for Spokane was otherwise aces.

“The game was over early and that was evident the rest of the game,” Babcock said. “The second period was sluggish. They’ve done a lot of traveling. I don’t think we caught them as their freshest.

“I would have liked to have had an up-tempo game where we could have played lots of people but it was specialty teams all night long.”

The penalty killers - veterans Gillam, Hugh Hamilton, Sinclair, Podollan, Jon Shockey and Adam Magarell among them - were perfect. But “Your No. 1 penalty killer is your goaltender,” Babcock said, citing Lemanowicz , who is unbeaten in eight games this year and has prevailed in 14 straight regular-season decisions going back to last year.

Cirjak, who knocked in game-winners in both previous wins over Tri-City, was effective again.

“Our first few games in this place felt different - it didn’t feel like the old barn,” Cirjak said. “After a few games it seems like home. The fans are unbelievable. “

Podollan pointed to all there is to play for.

“There’s first place to play for, 10,400 to play for and all the guys in this room,” Podollan said. “That’s enough motivation to get me going.”

Chiefs 4, Tri-City 1

Tri-City 1 0 0 - 1

Spokane 4 0 0 - 4

First period - 1, TC, Mi.Hurley 8 (Gyori, Ma.Hurley), 3:06. 2, Spo, Favaro 6 (Leeb, Gillam), 7:18. 3, Spo, Sinclair 5 (Gillam, Podollan), 12:09 (pp). 4, Spo, Cirjak 6 (Hamilton, Podollan), 13:20. 5, Spo, Whitfield 12 (Podollan, Hamilton), 19:18. Key penalties - Magarrell, Spo, :37; Leeb, Spo, :57; Whitfield, Spo, 6:09; Briske, TC, 6:53; Magarrell, Spo, 9:29; Thompson, TC, 11:57; Briske, TC, 14:58; Leonov, Spo, 16:20.

Second period - None. Key penalties - Gillam, Spo, :54; Zavediuk, TC, 2:03; Cirjak, Spo, 9:51; Svejkovsky, TC, 10:22; Leeb, Spo, 10:37; McCallum, TC, 13:47; Bertsch, Spo, 18:59.

Third period - None. Key penalties - Boikov, TC, 4:55; Cerven, Spo, 7:38; Leonov, Spo, 8:54; Laypeyre, TC, 15:09.

Power-play Opportunities - TC 0 for 11; Spo 1 of 7. Saves - TC, Boucher 5-9-11-25. Spo, Lemanowicz 6-13-8-27. A - 10,452.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo