Driven Chiefs Refuse To Take A Back Seat

Look, fellas, the rest of us had to get up and go to work this morning.

You too?

Well, at least it’ll be a happy commute.

We were going to suggest that the Spokane Chiefs do overtime on their own time, but then we realized that they don’t have much of it that isn’t being spent on a bus between here and Kelowna.

But really, you’d have to think their best chance at surviving one of these Western Hockey League commissioner’s specials - a best-of-1,620-mile (if necessary) series - is probably to bring the nightly soirees in under, oh, 4 or 5 hours.

Not much chance of the Chiefs throwing this one back, however.

The proof was in the dogpile atop Brandin Cote in front of section 106 at the Arena Tuesday night - or was it Wednesday morning?

“I couldn’t breathe under there, though,” Cote complained.

Hey, breathing’s overrated.

He should know. In the most breathtaking manner possible, Cote’s overtime goal rescued the Chiefs from some deep dogpile (a potential 0-2 playoff deficit) and made them the team of the hour in this first-round series, there being only about an hour between games in a 1-1-1-2-1-1 format.

“The team that wins is always in the driver’s seat,” said Spokane coach Mike Babcock. “That’s just the way it is in the playoffs, especially when a series is tied or you’re up one.”

And maybe even more so when you’ve narrowly escaped being down two and survived a potentially humiliating effort in your own house.

Not that Babcock teams haven’t bailed their way out of leaky boats before. Indeed, for a time we were thinking that the Chiefs actually needed to get down 0-3 to have the Rockets exactly where they want them.

Except that would bring the Chiefs back home to the Arena, which in recent playoff action has been their own little hell, frozen over.

Babcock is fond of repeating that playoff success is not determined by schedule, site or shrill whistles, but by the players’ blood, sweat and desperation.

Well, the Chiefs were the poster children for desperation Tuesday night, resorting to sifting through dumpsters along about the second period. That’s when defenseman Zenith Komarniski erased a 2-0 Kelowna lead with a pair of splendid bullets past - through - Rockets goalie Chris Noble.

The amazing part was, the goals came in a stretch of some of the worst passing ever seen this side of Rick Mirer trying to execute a 2-minute drill.

“I watched them warm up and they executed all their passes - they were loose,” Babcock said of the Rockets. “I watched us and we never completed one.

“When Greg Leeb is home free and the puck ends up in the corner, how does that happen? That’s nerves. That’s pressure. That line (Leeb, Ty Jones, Marian Cisar) tonight, they were on for (Kelowna’s) first two goals. Those guys dominated this league and now you’re worried about who they play against? That’s just not handling nerves.”

So Babcock decided to handle them by peeling a little paint in the locker room between periods.

“No paint on the walls here,” he corrected. “That’s why they have cement.”

Having survived the worst - and that’s a generous description of Spokane’s first-period play - you just knew the Chiefs were going to get through the bad break of Cote being nailed for a dubious interference penalty as he was trying to leave the ice for a shift change. Kelowna cashed that one in for a 3-2 lead just before the end of the second, only to see Leeb - who had just flubbed a 2-on-1 goal - tie it again with a pretty wrap-around midway through the third.

“In the playoffs,” Babcock said, “you need your best guys to be better than their best guys.”

Heck, in these playoffs, Babcock just needs his best guys to prolong the drama as long as possible.

In case you missed it, the Chiefs are hosting the Memorial Cup - junior hockey’s Final Four - in about seven weeks. They’re in - but if they get bumped off prematurely in the WHL’s exhaustive siege, they’ll hardly feel a part of it.

The only people who stand to feel worse are those doing the books for the club and the Arena, which is why Arena manager Kevin Twohig was probably booing the loudest when referee Mike Hasenfratz imagined he saw Cote interfere.

“There’s a lot of pressure being the host team,” Cote admitted. “What’s keeping us motivated is that we don’t want to come in the back door. We want to be a contending team and go as far as we can. We don’t want people to think we didn’t earn it.

“I think this is a real turning point for the series.”

We won’t tell him, if you won’t. In a shuttle series like this one, there isn’t anything else but turning points.

, DataTimes MEMO: You can contact John Blanchette by voice mail at 459-5577, extension 5509.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Blanchette The Spokesman-Review