Report from Stockton
(aka. Stocktone, aka. Mudville (as in KC at Bat,as in No Joy in Mudville. Yeah, THAT Mudville), aka. Weberstown, aka. Tuleberg, aka. The Big Valley (as in that show with Barbara Stanwyck, Lee Majors, and Linda Evans), aka. Gas Town., aka. Fat City, aka. Broketown, aka. Little Detroit.)
Hopefully the whole fight wasn't like that. Just Sestito hanging on for dear life. Painful to watch. I really don't like Tom fighting mcgrattan either. That is one scary dude. Hopefully he doesn't have long-term effects after all of those punches.
Looked like he was hanging on for dear life there.
kcra..heh
He started the fight and got in good with McGratton early. It happened so fast I only caught from the corner of my eye. Though he got in close fighting him ended up being a mistake as McGratton managed to get his helmet off and smoked his head at leisure. Not really good connections and they both walked off when the officials broke it up.
McGratton was looking for another fight after the box while Sestito waited in the dressing room. When he was back on the ice he was chatting it up pretty good with someone with the ref made him sit down. I never saw him the rest of the game.
So has there been any reports on on the Stockton game?
Wanting to know how the Burrows-Bonino-Kassian line looked.
Could't agree more regarding th Vey trade.
Does anyone know how Bonino looked in the other game?
he scored. that is all i know. the production value of that game was cheaper then a Junior B game.
Canucks B squad came out flying against the captainless Sharks A squad in the very partisan 6600 crowd at the ECHL's most popular arena. Unfortunately, they couldn't seem to hit the net.
Sestito made a mistake by picking the fight early, well before the Canucks needed the momentum. Any plan to make it a scrummy game and get them boys in teal to play down to their level was over after that. Sharks scored their first goal on his instigator penalty. He played one more shift after his misconduct and even then the refs benched him. Willie did the rest of the benching after that.
The fast paced Sharks were difficult to contain in the neutral zone and the Nucks goatltenders were forced to make save after save on the pipe as the little fish like to seem to like get in close without actually crashing the net. Defensive breakdowns were an eyesore.
After the first period the SOG were 10-1 in favour of the tooth losers.
Officiating was terrible. Obvious holds and interference that were ignored weren't the worst part: they kept getting in the way of the players. At least four times. In their defense the Stockton Arena is just a bit bigger than Prince Rupert's Civic Centre.
Their inability to stay out of the box cost the Canucks more red lights.
But the worst part of the game for the good guys was the 5 on 3 when they were already down 3-0. With a full 1:40 on it the first shot was lost to a broken stick at the point. The second was when Weber hesitated when he had a clear shot from the point. Its like their hands were frozen too nervous to know what to do with a puck. Like they were wondering if they should even be there It was over after that and it was only the 2nd period.
So TBH, Benino, was pretty unnoticeable even with the goals the Canucks got. They were already down 4-0 when he scored. I yelled FOUR MORE BOYS and that got a laugh out of the no nothing bay area snobs in the crowd who kept calling the umbrella formation "the triangle" (true fact).
"What's a Canuck?" the nice older gentleman behind me asked. A bunch of BCer's that hate ourselves I said (actually, I said what's a Yankee three times till he finally started to get it. Nice guy. Took our picture. No one asked me what an Orca was this time.)
At least Burrows skated well. He went to the corners hard and got a wow out the audience when threw some fish into the glass. Unfortunately, he was constantly outskating the rest of the team. Not surprising for the best player to come out of the ECHL. He seemed like the only one comfortable out there but I think he was deliberately kept off the ice for the most part. At this rate Thorton will win the Preseason scoring race.
The highlights for me though was spending time with my nephews, and even though my bro-in-law was constantly looking at the score of the Giants game, they had a good time and were impressed at the CONSTANT action and line changes.
Other highlights included the drunk frat boys who started singing O Canada with me, and the guy who's hand I had to shake for wearing #37, Rick Rypien.
After, I got Nachos downtown at Xochimilco's. They give you gravy and cheese (queso) mixed in a bowl it with so I started calling it my Los Poutinos.
¡Ve, Canucks Ve!