Chiefs Throw Pizza Party For Arena Faithful Jones A Part Of Four Goals As Fans Feast On Rare Scoring Blitz

Ty Jones and the Spokane Chiefs - devastating on the power play Wednesday night - debunked the time-worn belief that there’s no such thing as a free lunch.

One of six Chiefs with multiple-point games, Jones had two goals and two assists in Spokane’s 8-4 throttling of the Red Deer Rebels.

The Chiefs sent an Arena crowd of 5,166 into the night with ticket stubs worth free pepperoni pizza through Monday. Pizza Hut rewards fans with a lunch pizza each time Spokane scores seven or more goals. It’s a fairly safe promotion. The tight-checking, two-way style of disciplined hockey the Chiefs play doesn’t promote high-scoring games. It’s only the third time this season that the pizza emporium has had to fork over.

But this was a night for shooters, none more lethal than Jones and Greg Leeb, who tormented his hometown club with a goal and three assists. Leeb had hoped to oppose his younger brother, Brad, a Red Deer right-winger, but Brad Leeb was serving a league-mandated suspension.

Jones, who’ll play his last game of the first half of the season Saturday night against Swift Current, was unstoppable on the power play. Jones leaves after the Swift Current game for tryouts with the U.S. national junior team.

“Jones had a phenomenal game,” Chiefs coach Mike Babcock said after his club moved four points up in the standings on third-place Prince George and to within two points - one win - of division-leading Portland.

“Our power play has been off lately and so have I,” Jones said. “They have big D men. We had to get behind them. We were bound to get it going on the power play and it happened tonight.”

After Chiefs management gave former Spokane captain Joel Boschman a warm introduction upon his return to Spokane, Boschman and the Rebs scored first in a loose opening period.

Frank Mrazek and his stick rode Spokane’s Kyle Rossiter through the slot long enough for Mrazek to get in position to poke the puck on net. It rolled through the wide-open pads of goaltender Aren Miller to give the Rebels a 1-0 lead 1:32 into the game.

Spokane rebounded quickly to score five times in one period for the first time all year. Brad Ference and Trent Whitfield rang up three points apiece in the first 20 minutes.

Marc Brown, Marian Cisar, Whitfield, Jones and Ference beat Red Deer goaltender Cam Ondrik in the first period Ference, Jones and Whitfield on the power play.

The key was a pair of power-play goals in a 31-second span. The first - the game-winner - came from Whit field with the Chiefs on a 5-on-3 advantage. Boschman took an undisciplined high-sticking penalty to put the Rebels two men down. Whitfield scored with the backhand on the rebound after Ference put a shot on from the point of the power play.

The second strike in that brief flurry, with 4:21 left in the first, came off the stick of Jones.

That prompted Hobson to use his one timeout. He elected to stay with his young goaltender, who got better as the game flew by.

“He’s got to learn to battle through those things,” Hobson said. “Sometimes it takes a kick in the ass to do it.”

While the Chiefs were going to work on the power play - they scored on all three of their opportunities on the power play in the first period and were 5 of 9 with the extra attacker for the night - Miller was tightening up in goal.

Derisive cheers when he made his first save on a puck that was barely moving turned to an ovation when Miller repeatedly stoned Red Deer sniper Shawn McNeil, the eighth-leading scorer in the Western Hockey League.

Miller, sprawling, twice denied McNeil a goal in the second period to protect the Chiefs’ 5-2 first-period lead. McNeil for the night had three point-blank chances turned away.

Ondrik, 17, from Cranbrook, British Columbia, a 3-hour drive from the Arena, made only his ninth appearance of the year for the Rebels in place of regular goaltender Mike Whitney. It was a long night, but Ondrik did come up with 40 saves before it was over.

“I’m sure he’d like to have the first-period back,” Hobson said. “He faced too much rubber, no question, but we needed a couple stops.”

After Jones made it 6-2 in the second period, Mrazek answered with his second goal of the night for Red Deer (15-16-1).

The Chiefs (23-9-1) got that back, again on the power play, when Leeb scored his 19th of the year with 1:55 left in the second period.

Aaron Asham pulled Red Deer to within three, beating Miller with the wraparound 4:12 into the third period, but Dan Vandermeer’s one-timer from the slot on a feed from Lynn Loyns restored the Chiefs’ four-goal lead. It was Loyns’ first Western Hockey League point.

Chiefs 8, Rebels 4

Red Deer 2 1 1 - 4

Spokane 5 2 1 - 8

First period - 1, Red Deer, Mrazek 19, 1:32. 2, Spokane, Ference 6 (Whitfield, Cisar), 2:29 (pp). 3, Spokane, Cisar 23 (Whitfield), 4:17. 4, Red Deer, Kacher 12 (Wallin, Boschman), 7:54 (pp). 5, Spokane, Brown 8 (Leeb), 10:01. 6, Spokane, Whitfield 15 (Jones, Ference), 15:08 (pp). 7, Spokane, Jones 15 (Ference, Leeb), 15:39 (pp). Key penalties - Ward, RD, 1:52; Rossiter, Spo, 7:00; Whitfield, Spo, 12:20; Peat, RD, 13:37; Boschman, RD, 14:36; Loyns, Spo, 17:20.

Second period - 8, Spokane, Jones 16 (Leeb, Komarniski), 13:26 (pp). 9, Red Deer, Peat 4 (Mrazek, Bergen), 16:51. 10, Spokane, Leeb 19 (Cisar, Jones), 18:05 (pp). Key penalties - Rohwig, RD, 3:43; Jones, Spo, 5:25; Peat, RD, 8:49; Mapletoft, RD, 12:51; Fischer, Spo, 15:42; McNeil, RD, 16:07; Komarniski, Spo, 19:17; Asham, RD, 19:21.

Third period - 11, Red Deer, Asham 17 (McDonald), 4:12. 12, Spokane, Vandermeer (Loyns, Komarniski), 14:45. Key penalties - Peat, RD, misconduct, 4:39; D.McQueen, RD, 9:35; Cederstrand, RD, 17:57.

Power-play opp. - Red Deer 1 of 6; Spokane 5 of 9. Saves - Red Deer, Ondrick 16-12-12-40. Spokane, Miller 17-7-7-31. A - 5,166.

, DataTimes MEMO: Coming up Saturday: The Chiefs play Swift Current in the Arena at 7:05 p.m.