T-Birds Silence Chiefs, 10,455 Fans Sellout Crowd Has Little To Cheer, Especially With Mascot Gone Awol

The Spokane Chiefs weren’t the only no-shows at the Arena Saturday night.

Even their mascot skipped the 8-2 loss to the Seattle Thunderbirds.

Boomer, the Chiefs moosey-looking cheerleader who’s failed to show up for work the last two nights, faces an uncertain future with the Western Hockey League club.

If it’s any consolation, the guy who wears the Boomer suit didn’t miss much this time. It took Seattle’s Mark Parrish only 18 minutes to rig the Arena for silent running.

Parrish’s three first-period goals erased an early Chiefs’ lead and took a sellout crowd of 10,455 out of the game early. To their credit, most of the faithful hung around through the Chiefs’ worst loss of the season.

The teams have to do it all over again tonight at 5:05 in Seattle.

A blowout was probably inevitable. Playing their second game in as many nights, the Chiefs were without seven players still in transit from international tournaments. Spokane is 3-3-2 since a corps of key players started checking out for holiday tournaments in mid-December.

The single Spokane high - and it was a beauty - was Trent Whitfield’s short-handed goal that should lead off his team’s ‘97-98 highlight film.

The T-Birds were on the power play when Whitfield separated Matt Demarski from the puck at the Chiefs blue line and sent it the other way. Seattle goaltender Jeff Blair came way out to challenge Whitfield but broke his stick trying to play the puck off the boards.

Whitfield picked up the puck and blew by the goalie, who, in exasperation, threw what was left of his paddle at the Chiefs captain as he skated in for the empty-net goal.

Enter Parrish, the 20-year-old former St. Cloud (Minn.) State College star, who extended his scoring streak to 12 games with his 26th, 27th and 28th goals of the year.

“That’s one thing we wanted to do - not make the crowd be any part of the game at all,” Parrish said. “That was a big part of it.”

The T-Birds, who came in frustrated over poor special-teams play, were almost unstoppable on the power play, scoring on 5 of 9 chances with the extra attacker. They also killed off 9 of 10 Spokane power-play opportunities.

Credit some of that to the Chiefs’ manpower problems - Whitfield and Greg Leeb saw only 3 minutes of third-period ice time - but this is an improving Seattle club that could be making waves come playoff time.

“Since Christmas, we’ve had a few good games like this,” Thunderbirds coach Don Nachbaur said. “We expected more of our personnel but we’re coming. The power play is starting to click now that DiRo (Torrey DiRoberto) is coming around (from abdominal surgery).”

DiRoberto is a big part of the T-Bird penalty kill that set the tone early.

“I felt the air go out of the bag when we killed the 5-on-3,” Nachbaur said, referring to the two-man advantage Spokane had for 1:44 early in the game. The Chiefs had two other brief first-period, 5-on-3 power-play chances but couldn’t score.

“It gave us confidence,” Nachbaur said. “Shortly after we got to full strength, we go on the power play and score. Parrish is going to be a great pro. He’s got sweet hands and good speed, and he plays with grit.”

Jamie Pollock and DiRoberto also had three-point nights for the T-Birds (17-17-4). The Chiefs slipped to 26-12-3.

“It was a tough game for us in the fact that the referee (Darryl Davis) was very involved,” said Chiefs coach Mike Babcock, who was turned back in his bid for his 200th WHL victory. “He put us on the power play a whole bunch at the start. We had some big chances and didn’t put it in the back of the net. We knew it (power-play chances) was coming the other way.

“We haven’t taken many penalties since the guys have been away, but the ref wanted a game like that and that’s how he made it. It hurt us, and they dominated by scoring on the power play nearly every chance they had.” , DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: COMING UP Today: Spokane Chiefs at Seattle Thunderbirds, 5:05 p.m.