Chiefs Come Up Short-Handed To Play Seattle
It’s news, and yet it’s the same old story. The Spokane Chiefs are short-handed.
Again.
The Western Hockey League club expected to play with a short bench tonight in Seattle, with Derek Schutz, Ty Jones and Brad Ference in Toronto for the Canadian Hockey League Top Prospects game.
The body count didn’t improve Monday when Trent Whitfield and Chad Reich were slowed by undisclosed injuries from Saturday night’s 5-2 win at Tri-City.
The good news is that Jared Smyth is close to coming off the injured list. The promising left winger hurt his neck in the club’s Jan. 19 bus crash.
The other player seriously hurt in the accident, Yegor Mikhailov, remains sidelined with a badly cut hand and head pain, coach Mike Babcock said.
“We just haven’t had the luxury of a healthy or complete lineup,” Babcock said.
The T-Birds sent superstar Patrick Marleau and Jeremy Reich to the prospects game but are otherwise at full-strength. They’ve beaten Spokane four straight and have taken five of seven games this season between the two.
A healthy Whitfield is the key to turning that around.
Illegal stick, lighter wallet
When Marian Cisar was detected with an illegal stick Saturday night in Tri-City, it cost the 18-year-old right wing more than 2 minutes in the penalty box.
Tri-City got a late third-period power play out of it, after Americans coach Bob Loucks had referee Kelly Sutherland measure Cisar’s stick. The curvature was beyond the maximum allowable.
The WHL has no punishment for such infractions. Most clubs deal with it internally, WHL vice president Rick Doerksen said.
“It’s a $50 fine,” Babcock said after the game.
Who pays it?
“The guy who gets fined,” the coach said.
It was the Chiefs’ first illegal stick penalty of the year, and with a hefty price tag like that, it’ll probably be the last.
“Everybody on both teams knows that (certain) sticks are illegal,” Babcock said. “I usually wait for somebody to do this once a year. It cost him $50. Now we’ll get on with having straight sticks.”
Punch lines
With Spokane’s Jay Bertsch forced into retirement, the WHL’s reigning tough guys are Rocky Thompson of the Swift Current Broncos and the Kamloops Blazers’ Rob Skrlac.
The two traded bombs Saturday 3 minutes into their game in Swift Current. Results were mixed, depending on the source.
“He was talking ‘er up in the papers, so I just lined up beside him and asked him if he wanted to go,” Thompson told the Medicine Hat News. “It was close at the start but at the end, I pulled away and dropped him.”
Skrlac’s version differs.
“He dropped me?” Skrlac told Scott Cruickshank of the Kamloops Daily News. “He’s the Muhammad Ali of the Western Hockey League. Just ask him, he’ll tell you. I saw him stop punching and I kept going.”
Throwing punches and caution to the end. Does that make Skrlac the Joe Frazier of the league?
Notes
With points in 12 of his last 13 games, John Cirjak has 202 points in his career, 10th on the Chiefs’ all-time list. Cirjak moved into the top 10 ahead of Brent Gilchrist, who finished his junior career with 190 points. Cirjak should pass Maxim Bets (222), Steve Junker (227) and Mark Wingerter (231) by season’s end… . The Chiefs average 30.6 minutes in penalties, fourth in the WHL behind Lethbridge, Edmonton and Seattle. The Lethbridge Hurricanes incur 31.2 minutes per game, paced by defensemen Dale Purinton and Mike O’Grady, who are sitting on indefinite suspensions… . After an 0-6 swing through the East, the Kamloops Blazers can’t win 40 games this season. The last time they logged fewer than 40 was the 1988-89 season, when they won 34. It’s the club’s first losing season in 15 years, but GM Stu MacGregor sees better days ahead under coach Ed Dempsey, who has been offered a one-year contract extension… . Spokane’s Chad Reich and Seattle’s Jeremy Reich are cousins… . Tri-City’s Brent Ascroft, in his fifth WHL season, is on pace to play in his 355th game and set a league record for a five-year player. Only six-year players Glen Goodall (Seattle, 1984-90) and Rob Dumas (Seattle, Spokane, ‘84-90) appeared in more… . Todd Robinson, who’s here Friday night, had a goal and an assist Sunday to move into 12th all-time in Portland Winter Hawks scoring. Robinson, with 277 points, moved ahead of Adam Deadmarsh, who had (276).
, DataTimes