Things That Make Me Go Hmm...

• Mr. Obvious will tell you that if Mikael Backlund indeed plays for the Rockets after the world junior hockey championships, Lukas Matejka is the odd man out. With just one point in 24 games, his time in a Rockets uniform would surely be severed. Come to think of it, Matejka's chances to prove himself appear to be slipping away regardless of whether Backlund plays here or not. European draft picks are suppose to be 1st or second line players, not 4th liners.
• What kind of impact could Backlund make if he joined the Rockets after the Christmas break? Defenseman Duncan Keith played in 37 games after the break, collecting 46 points. Keith was also a +32.
• What will it take for the Kelowna Rockets to challenge the Vancouver Giants for the Western Conference crown? If the Rockets are a long way off, is it worth making a series of trades just to come close? If Backlund does come to Kelowna, the void of a top six forward has been filled but now the aim would be to obtain a top end defenseman. GM Bruce Hamilton would surely have to part with a first round pick in the bantam draft to get quality in return. Is he willing to go that far with the potential of going through Spokane or Tri City just to get to Vancouver in a possible conference final?
• In my opinion the Rockets are two players away from challenging Vancouver, yet if the Giants make a significant trade at the deadline that number will obviously increase.
• Could the Rockets beat the Giants with this current lineup? Yes. In a seven game series? No!
• The Rockets have played 970 games as the Kelowna Rockets. The Rockets will play their 1000th game in Kelowna February 27th in Red Deer..the site where the team won it's first ever WHL championship. The Rockets franchise is closing in on 500 wins during it's time in Kelowna. The Rockets have 490 victories. Overall the franchise has 635 wins since it was born in 1991-92 as the Tacoma Rockets.
• My favorite NHL team is now the Chicago Black Hawks. Why? Those ten Western Hockey League players have everything to do with it. What makes me feel old, yet privileged is to say that I have been able to broadcast games involving all ten of those players at the junior level. Yes even 31 year-old Brent Sopel is on that list. Sopel was with the Swift Current Broncos when I was cutting my teeth as the play-by-play caller of the Broncos in the late 90's.
• I was going through several video tapes the other night and stumbled across one where I am calling the play-by-play between the Swift Current Broncos and Portland Winter Hawks. I want to publicly ask the listeners in Swift Current for forgiveness. At the time you don't realize how bad you were until you listen 10 years later. Maybe I'll listen to what I am doing 10 years from now and think the same thing?
• Going back to Rexall Place was a thrill. I watched my first ever NHL game in that building as a teenager when my uncle took me to watch some young guy named Wayne Gretzky face the LA Kings. What do I remember most about that game? The public address announcer at the start of the game saying "Led by Grant Fuhr, your Edmonton Oilers." That same announcer I believe is still at the helm almost 30 years later.
• At the time I knew it as Northlands Coliseum, which was built in 1974. It received a 14 million dollar reno in 1994. Yet I swear the blue seats in the upper deck at Rexall Place are the same as when I took in my first NHL game in the 80's. The club seats are new, but in the upper deck the seats are those run of the mill wooden type.
• The broadcast booths at Rexall Place all have glass sliding doors, basically like you'd find as you go onto an outdoor deck.