Ex-Chiefs Happy With New Teams Favaro, Magliarditi Find Trades Have Way Of Working Out

Randy Favaro is happy.

Marc Magliarditi is optimistic and, as usual, eminently quotable.

The two former Spokane Chiefs expressed similar feelings in separate phone conversations Tuesday.

They said they miss the families they stayed with in Spokane. They said their new teams have a unity they didn’t feel here. They both are excited about their possibilities in the Western Hockey League playoffs.

Magliarditi said his trade to the Red Deer Rebels caught him by surprise.

“Babs (coach Mike Babcock) told me the day before the trade (on Thursday) that I was playing Friday,” he said. “He just didn’t say where.”

Favaro returns tonight with the Portland Winter Hawks, who take on the Chiefs at 7:05 in the Arena. It’s his first game in Spokane since last May, when he helped the Chiefs reach the WHL finals.

A favorite here with his 92-mile-an-hour slap shot and aggressive body checks, the veteran right winger comes in tonight with the opposition.

He said he hated to leave Spokane last spring, when the Edmonton Ice took him in the WHL expansion draft. Although he went from a division winner to a last-place expansion team, his stay with the Ice was mercifully brief.

The Winter Hawks traded for him on Dec. 12. The bounce back to a contender “was the second-happiest moment of my career,” said the 20-year-old Favaro. “I think everybody who plays in this league would say it’s hard to top that moment when you first get into major junior hockey. I remember how important I felt when I made the team in Spokane (in ‘92). The way I felt going to Portland was pretty close to that.”

Favaro played in 244 games with the Chiefs in four seasons before Edmonton picked him off Spokane’s unprotected list.

“Words can’t describe how much I’ve wanted this,” he said of his homecoming game. “I try to stay in touch with the vets I played with in Spokane. I probably always will.”

There was an ironic touch to his greeting in Portland. Waiting for him there was Kevin Popp, another former Chief.

The two roomed together in Spokane, Favaro said. Now they’re together again on a winner in Portland.

How does this year’s Winter Hawks club compare to last year’s division championship team in Spokane?

“Last year’s Spokane team maybe had more overall skill,” Favaro said, “but this year’s Portland team is tighter. It’s a closer group on the whole.”

Magliarditi, in Red Deer, made a similar observation.

“It’s not like the guys in Spokane don’t like each other,” said Magliarditi, a 20-year-old goaltender in his first WHL season. “Maybe it’s because Red Deer is a smaller city and we’re stuck with each other, but when I got here, there were phone calls, guys letting me know where the team party was.

“The players here do stuff together. In Spokane, we almost had to be forced to have team functions by Babs (coach Mike Babcock) or Coxie (assistant coach Brett Cox), or whoever. That shouldn’t be. If you’re on a team, you should want to get together.

“Like I said, it’s not that the guys in Spokane don’t care for each other. It’s just that they were on their own page, and there were a couple of cliques here and there.”

Magliarditi said he is not bitter.

“I was getting settled in Spokane,” he said. “My billets, Dan and Karen Silver, were great. I got pretty close to their son, Darrell. He’s 11.

“It was tough leaving them and some of the guys I made good friends with, but it’s a good situation for me here.

“That’s the business of it. This probably won’t be the last time I’ll be traded.”

Notes

The Winter Hawks will be without standout right wing Brad Isbister tonight. Isbister suffered a strained right shoulder in Portland’s loss to Seattle on Friday night. He’s expected to miss four to eight games. … Brent Belecki gets the start in goal tonight for the Hawks. Cris Wickenheiser is out with a pulled groin muscle. … Chiefs center Trent Whitfield is on fire, with eight goals and six assists in his last six games. … Chiefs’ right wing Ty Jones has scored in 18 of his last 20 games. … Besides Magliarditi, Red Deer picked up former Tri-City star winger Terry Ryan when the Montreal Canadiens sent the left winger back to juniors. Ryan missed 37 games in Montreal with post-concussion syndrome, said to be the result of an injury last season. He’s been cleared to play Feb. 10.

Portland was in the hunt up to Friday’s trade deadline for Chris Phillips, the star defenseman the Prince Albert Raiders traded to the Lethbridge Hurricanes. “I think our offer was stronger than the offer Prince Albert accepted,” Winter Hawks president/general manager Ken Hodge told the Oregonian. … Former Chiefs left wing Andrew Milne was part of the deal that resulted in Swift Current getting tougher. Swift acquired 19-year-old defenseman Rocky Thompson and left winger Josh Green from Medicine Hat for center Tyler Perry, defenseman Kevin Mackie, the 18-year-old left wing Milne and a 15-year-old off Swift Current’s 50-player protected list. Green was Medicine Hat’s No. 2 scorer. Thompson is a tough-guy D-man.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo