No Surprise in Cougar Sweep!

I am not surprised that the Cougars eliminated the Blazers in 4 straight?

You had to know the Blazers were in trouble heading into the playoffs when they ended off the season with a 13 game winless streak on the road.

Ok they used a shoot-out win in one of those, but they were horrible on the road down the stretch.

Dropping back-to-back home games to start the series was a killer for the crew from Kamloops, as winning on the road seemed almost impossible with games 3 and 4 in Prince George.

I caught some of the Cougars post game show last night on the internet, and the fans there sounded excited.

And rightfully so!
Good to see them jumping on the bandwagon with some pretty decent crowds of just over 45 hundred Tuesday (I demanded 45 hundred needed to show up on a previous blog) and over 52 hundred took in last night's game.
If you compare that with the two playoff games they hosted last season in a first round playoff series with Vancouver, the Cougars got almost 49 hundred for game three and just over 42 hundred for game four.
The difference between that playoff series in 2006 and this year?
The Cougars lost both to the Giants, this time a 4 game sweep allows Prince George to experience playoff hockey in the second round.
The last time the Cougars made it to the second round was in 2001, when they lost to Portland in 6 games.

The biggest crowd in PG for that series was game 5, when 5 thousand 826 fans watched the hometown Cougars suffer a 5-3 loss.

Good on you Cougar fans for supporting the team, keep it up!

I hate to say it, but I am being totally honest here.

The Swift Current Broncos are done!

A politically correct statement would make me say, despite being down 3-1 in their series with Regina, they have the fortitude to come back and win game 5 and then send the series back to Swifty where momentum would be on there side for game six which would lead to a game seven back at the Brandt Centre in Regina.

Sorry Bronco fans, it ain't happening.

Where has Broncos second leading scorer Dale Weise gone?
43 points during the regular season, and just one point in four games.

Ouch!

At least Jeremy Schenderling is playing with desperation. The overager has 4 goals in 4 games.

The Broncos d-men are a combined minus 15 in the series.

Sorry to pick that out Kenner, but it's like turning on a flashlight in the dark, you can't help but see it.

The Giants are done playing around with Chilliwack.

After getting a scare early on in the series with a one goal win followed by a home ice loss, the Giants have recording back-to-back 4-0 and 5-1 wins. In the last two games Vancouver has out-shot the Bruins 50-26 in the second and third periods.

The Bruins are lucky the top line of Rabbit, Lucic and Repik have struggled out of the gates with just 6 points combined in the first 4 games.

Chilliwack's top line of Moller, Santorelli and Aspenlind are a combined -11 in the series.

It should be pointed out that Aspenlind, a former Cougar, has 2+3=5 in the series while Santorelli has 2+3=5 against the Giants.

Oscar Moller has faded a bit in the playoffs with no goals and a -4.

Some Rockets fans will cringe when they see who has the best goals against average in the W.H.L playoffs so far.

Yepper, it's Derek Yeomans.

Not like fans around here aren't cheering for him, but his 0.75 goals against average makes you shake your head.

Did the Rockets get enough in return for Yeomans when they dealt him to Seattle in the summer?

Obviously not, but at the time GM Bruce Hamilton told me interest in a 20 year-old goaltender was low. Had he been a year younger - maybe?

Yeomans has played 37 playoff games over his career, and with the T-Birds holding a 3-1 series lead over Tri City, it looks like that number will grow.