Grieving Whitfield Ices Ams After Grandmother’s Death, Center Helps Spokane Defeat Tri-City 4-1

It wasn’t as easy as it looked Saturday night, not for Trent Whitfield.

Whitfield’s 3-point night keyed the Spokane Chiefs’ third win in as many games, a breeze over the Tri-City Americans that looked as one-sided as any 4-1 Western Hockey League game gets.

But if the Chiefs’ Arena opener came off as routine to the 10,455 who filled it, it was special to the tireless 19-year-old center, who had a goal and two assists.

This one was for his grandmother.

Whitfield flew home (to Alameda, Saskatchewan) today for her funeral.

“Trent was great,” coach Mike Babcock said of Whitfield, who with six points in three games is a likely candidate for the league’s player of the week award.

Whitfield’s paternal grandmother, Barb Whitfield, died Friday of a heart attack at 70.

“I wanted to have a good game for her,” Whitfield said. “She would have liked to have been here and seen it. That gave me the incentive out there. Everything I did tonight was for her. I hope she was watching.”

The funeral is Tuesday. Whitfield will fly into Kamloops, British Columbia, Wednesday for that night’s game with the Blazers.

Saturday night, Whitfield assumed the starring role, getting his goal on sheer determination - whiffing a shot, flying to the net to collect the puck off defenseman Zenith Komarniski’s skate and sliding it by goaltender Brian Boucher.

He had a strong supporting cast. Marian Cisar, John Cirjak and Joe Cardarelli also scored in front of an audience that included WHL commissioner Dev Dley and Jim Willharm of Spokane, the 1,000,000th customer to file through the year-old Arena’s doors.

The Ams took two highlights with them on the long ride down Highway 395 - Brent Ascroft’s goal off a Spokane turnover that temporarily made it a two-goal game at 3-1, and Boucher’s 45 saves.

Babcock saw a lot to like, including the Chiefs’ power play. Although Spokane scored on only 1 of 6 power-play opportunities “Every time we had it, it was 2 minutes in the (offensive) zone, shooting the puck.”

It was Cirjak, not surprisingly, who scored the power-play goal that turned out to be the game-winner at 12:49 of the first. Cirjak has been a terror on the power play for two seasons.

The upshot is that, after two of 16 games between these two rivals, the odds on Tri-City playing with Spokane anytime in the near future are about as realistic as Crazy George and his obnoxious snare drum playing with the London Philharmonic.

The semi-professional cheerleader was hired to stoke the crowd. Good thing. Nobody nodded off.

The bad news for the Ams is that they’ve already lost two 4-1 games to the Chiefs. The worse news is that 14 potential 4-1 games remain.

Whitfield didn’t see it as that lopsided. “They came at us a lot harder tonight,” he said. “With guys back, they’re a lot more balanced up front now. We got a couple of lucky bounces off skates that ended up in the back of the net.”

The Chiefs’ first goal came from one of those breaks, Cisar benefiting from the puck glancing off the skate of Tri-City’s Scott McCallum.

The Chiefs took 49 shots while Aren Miller only faced 20, but he had dandy saves on three breakaways.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo