Sellout Crowd Will Sit In On Whl History

A sellout crowd will witness a piece of junior hockey history Wednesday night in the Arena, when the Portland Winter Hawks and Spokane Chiefs settle their Western Hockey League West Division quarterfinal.

The clubs will line up for Game Seven tied at three games apiece in this first-round series.

Tickets were snapped up in a hurry Monday. More than 1,500 fans were lined up when the Chiefs’ offices opened.

“We’re excited and so are our fans,” Chiefs general manager Tim Speltz said. “It’s great, how excited and loyal they’ve been.”

The Chiefs are trying to come back from a three-game deficit. It’s believed no team has been down 3-0 and rallied to win a WHL playoff series.

The Winter Hawks are trying to become the first No. 6 seed in WHL history to knock off a No. 1 seed.

The Chiefs were 31 seconds away from elimination Sunday night in Portland when Joe Cardarelli scored off goaltender Brent Belecki’s glove from a scramble in front of the net to send Game Six into overtime.

The Chiefs went on to win 4-3 in double overtime on Randy Favaro’s wrist shot.

Both coaches Mike Babcock of Spokane and the Winter Hawks’ Brent Peterson cited parallels to Game One, when Spokane dominated only to lose in overtime. This time it was Portland that played well enough to win at home but lost in overtime.

“That was one of the best hockey games I’ve ever been involved with,” Peterson said. “I was proud of our team. We outworked and outplayed them most of the game. I can’t ask for any more.”

Can he ask for as much?

“Whatever team regroups and gets back physically and mentally what they lost here (has the edge),” the Portland coach replied. “We’ve won up there twice. We’ll just have to find a way to do it again.”

The Chiefs’ Babcock is thankful for the home-ice advantage, and the effort that brought it about.

“We worked hard for 72 games (of the regular season to gain home-ice advantage through the division playoffs) so we could have a Game Seven in our building if we needed it,” Babcock said. “Now it’s a matter of taking advantage of opportunity.

“I think you have to tip your hat to the guys for the amount of character they’ve shown. After we went down 3-0 we challenged our players and they’ve done a great job.”

The Winter Hawks were at less than full strength Sunday. Matt Davidson, who suffered a shoulder injury in Friday night’s game in Spokane, was restricted mostly to penalty killing. Judd Casper took Davidson’s shifts, starting on a line with Richard Zednik and center Dave Scatchard.

Scatchard, who won a string of key faceoffs Sunday night, was a force, but the Chiefs sat on Zednik for the second straight game. Defensemen Sean Gillam and Adam Magarell, among others, have stayed on or close to Zednik, who starred in Portland’s wins.

The Winter Hawks played Sunday night as if it were their last game, Babcock said.

“They played hard, and they have one more opportunity,” the Chiefs coach said. “If somebody had told them before the series that they’d be in Spokane for Game Seven, they’d have said, ‘Awesome.’

“Same for us after the third game. If you’d told me then that we’d have a Game Seven here I would have jumped at it.

“I’m hoping the team our fans saw on Friday night will be there.”

The Chiefs wore down the Hawks that night, 5-0.

, DataTimes