Chiefs Lose Exhibition, Maybe Veteran Defender Boschman Suffers Hand Injury During Portland’s 4-3 Triumph
Call it what you will - Portland Winter Hawks coach Brent Peterson wrote it off as a waste but Sunday night’s exhibition hockey game was anything but forgettable.
Joel Boschman will remember it every time he looks down at his injured right thumb.
The veteran Spokane Chiefs defenseman lost a glove and took a hard slash to his unprotected hand midway in the third period of Spokane’s 4-3 loss to Portland at Eagles Ice Arena.
“He’s going to lose the nail for sure,” Chiefs coach Mike Babcock said. “Hopefully, it’s not broken. He gets blatantly slashed and we end up short two guys (for having too many men on the ice and an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty). It (the call by referee Colin Rasmussen) was absolutely brutal.”
Boschman’s injury, if it’s as serious as Babcock feared, is bad news to a team shy of veteran defensemen, although the Chiefs may have turned up help along the blue line in smallish Dan Vandermeer.
A 5-9, 155-pound 19-year-old from Caroline, Alberta, Van dermeer spent last year with the Tier II Surrey (British Columbia) Eagles. Making his first local appearance in front of a capacity crowd of 875 in the tiny northside rink, Vandermeer wore the alternate captain’s A and played on both the power play and penalty kill.
But the Winter Hawks veteran forwards Todd Robinson, Bobby Russell, Bobby Duncan and Chris Jacobson were too much for the Chiefs, who have 10 players eligible to return to junior hockey who are off to pro camp.
Robinson, Russell, Kyle Chant and Ken Davis had the Winter Hawks goals.
Down 3-1 after one period, the Chiefs got a short-handed goal from another newcomer, Ron Grimard, in the second period to go with Blake Evans’ goal at 6:36 of the third period. Grimard, recently acquired from the Edmonton Ice, also assisted on Boschman’s game-opening goal.
Peterson, Western Hockey League coach of the year last season, was unimpressed with his younger players.
“Disgusting,” he said. “We didn’t have a lot of players dressed tonight - we had 17, two of them were hurt and at one point we were down to three D men. Spokane didn’t have a lot of their regulars so it was sort of a … I’m trying to think of a good word for the game.”
As is his custom, Peterson finally came up with the word.
“Waste,” he said. “I don’t know about their team, but our team was terrible.”
Terrible or not, the Winter Hawks, 4-0 in preseason, completed a weekend sweep of the 2-2 Chiefs, beating Spokane 6-3 Friday in Portland.
Spokane skated without touted rookie center Brandin Cote, who sat out with a game misconduct carried over from Friday night’s loss.
Veteran Chiefs right wing Marian Cisar showed up in street clothes, just back from rookie camp with the Los Angeles Kings.
The Winter Hawks were without four players who are at pro camp - Joey Tetarenko (Florida), Andrej Podkonicky (St. Louis), Brenden Morrow (Dallas) and Andrew Ference (Pittsbugh).
“They get the three quick goals - that’s a sign of immaturity - yet a lot of our young guys battled,” Babcock said. “I was impressed with Evans, who led us. I thought Vandermeer was outstanding. We got solid goal-tending from (Shaun) Fleming (who stopped 28 of Portland’s 32 shots) and I liked (Ben) Johnson, (Bill) Bellmore and (Justin) Kelly, another 16-year-old.”
The Chiefs sent defenseman Peter Maclellan and right wing Jeff Peters home after the game. They were to announce other cuts later today.
, DataTimes