**Hocking Hills Prospect Camp** (Part Four)

One of the many "full-sized" rinks at Hocking Hills 

9:00pm: After dinner talent show.

I've never heard of a "talent show" at a hockey camp but trying to be gracious, I went along with it.

First up, Kid Wock brought tears to the eyes of everyone in attendance as he gave an emotional interpretive reading of Donald Trump's inaugural address from last January.

Next, a kid named "Pauly" showed everyone his ability to stand facing in several positions while balancing on his surfboard, which he had placed on the stage.

He was followed by "Rudy" who could sing the alphabet song backward while dancing the tango by himself.

Next came "Maurice" who impressed everyone with his amazing memory when he named every single roster player for the 1967-68 Oakland Seals. Allegedly, Maurice had a great uncle who served as the clubhouse boy for that season.

"Jonnie-boy" then wowed the crowd as he walked all of us through the proper steps in changing a tire on a 1986 Ford 150 pickup.

Next came a truly surprising act, when the four goalies, (3 of whom had recently been released from the local jail and rushed back to the rink for this part of the program,) all came out and in a barbershop quartet style, sang an amazing version of the "Lumberjack Song."

Finally, "Nathan Knob-Knob" and "Clyde No" debated the virtue of a free market healthcare system versus a universal coverage system in the United States. Both men made good points but in the end, no one knew what the hell to think.

We called it a night and returned to our room. The next morning would be the final scrimmage of the camp, after which everyone would head home.

Crosby has goal and assist to lead Chinook in 6-1 win over Lakers...

CALGARY –  Sidney Crosby and linemates Artemi Panarin, Joe Pavelski were just dominant.

Crosby and Pavelski each had a goal and an assists and Panarin had two assists to lead the Calgary Chinook to a 6-1 victory over the Dartmouth Lakers on Wednesday night.

"We had a lot of chances as a line and could, maybe, have had a couple more," Left-winger Panarin said.
"They're great players," Panarin said of his linemates. "They have a lot of skill so I just tried to open up some room for them. Use my speed and it just worked tonight."

Giordano, Silfverberg, O’Reilly and Barkov also scored to help the Chinook win for the tenth time in eleven games. Carey Price stopped 28 shots.
"I felt good," Price said. "I felt like I was seeing the puck the whole time and I was in the right position."

Pavelski and Silfverberg scored in a span of 4 minutes, 8 seconds near the end of the second period to give the Chinook a 4-0 lead. Barkov scored late in the third to make it 6-1.  That is Barkov 17 goals of the season.  Surprisingly, both center man Crosby and Barkov outscoring their wingers by a large margin this season.

"We kept coming in waves," Chinook defenseman Mark Giordano said. "Line after line, 'D' pair after 'D' pair, just kept doing the same thing."

Defenseman Gostisbehere spoiled Price's shutout bid with early in the third period.

NOTES:

Fourth Line wingers Ferland and Granlund end up being a bench warmer playing 0 minutes that game.  “I am not sure what the coach is thinking, we are winning by a lot and we didn’t get a chance to play. “Said a frustrated Ferland after the game.

Weber had an impressive 5 hits in the game.

UP NEXT:

The Calgary Chinook will host the Portland Owls on Thursday.

Dayton Falls Short in OT Loss vs. Thunder

IN a contest that on paper shouldn't have been that close, the Niagara Falls Thunder defeated the Musicmen 5-4 in overtime at the Soundstage in Dayton, OH.

After Derek Ryan and then, after a goal from former Musicman Jonathon Drouin, Teemu Pulkkinen both gave Dayton first period leads, the special teams reared their ugly heads.

Three straight powerplay goals for the Thunder gave them a 4-2 lead as the game entered the late stages of the third period.

Michael DelZotto scored at the 18:43 mark of the third period to make it a one-goal deficit for the home team. Sixty - two seconds later, Del Zotto sent Dylan Larkin in on Niagara Falls goalie Petr Mrazek who couldn't control his rebound after Larkin's wrister aimed at the upper left corner. The puck bounced directly to Scottie Upshall, who buried it for the game-tying goal with five seconds left in regulation.

Dayton had all the momentum, had outshot the Thunder since the start of the second period and overtime couldn't start fast enough for the home crowd.

After the TV timeout, each team sent its overtime skater out and Logan Couture quickly won the draw against Ryan and circled back in his own end to set up the play.

A normal approach as teams try to bring the puck up the ice carefully and get set up in their opponents offensive zone.

Couture noticed something amiss in the Musicmen's defensive coverage and winger Cam Atkinson had snuck behind the Dayton defense along the far wall. Couture dumped the puck behind defenseman Luca Sbisa.

Sbisa beat Atkinson to the dump-in and turned behind the Dayton net to skate out of his zone on the other side.

Atkinson was a few steps behind Sbisa, a good skater, as he headed up ice.

Atkinson closed ground quickly and deftly lifted Sbisa's stick, stole the puck and turned hard back toward Musicmen goalie Jared Coreau.

At the top of the left wing circle, Coreau came out toward Atkinson to cut down the angle.

By the time the clock had struck the :21 mark, Atkinson had faked his shot from the circle, slammed on the brakes and beat the rookie goalie with a change of pace shot through Coreau's 5 hole for the win.

The loss, Dayton's sixth in a row, left the Musicmen in the Corfield Conference basement. The Thunder, winners of 7 of their last 10 games, are now tied with Portland for fifth place in the conference.

Game Notes:

Musicman Drew Stafford will be out for about three weeks after James Neal, on a questionable check, shoved Stafford into the Musicmen player's bench. "Drew never saw Neal coming and Neal should've let up a lot more than he did. Neal's a cheap shot artist and someday will clean his clock but good." said Upshall.

Neal, who has played for both Niagara Falls and Dayton, (as well as Thunderbay and Quebec,) in his CCHL career, felt it was a good hit.

"Yes, I saw him, I thought there was plenty of room and I barely touched him. Maybe he's too old to play this level anymore. Who knows?" said Neal.

What's Next?

Dayton continues its homestand as the Ottawa Barracudas come to town on Thursday night. The Thunder return home to face off with the Halifax Hammerheads at the Thunderdome also on Thursday evening.

**Hocking Hills Prospect Camp** (Part Three)

The State of the Art Hocking Hills Hockey Haven

Part Three...

5:00pm First scrimmage: The kids were divided into two teams of 10 skaters and 2 goalies each. Except there was a problem. Apparently, as Rosetti explained, two of the kids had violated curfew which he had set at 2:30am last night and got into a scuffle in a nearby roadhouse. Arrests were made and charges were pending and those guys wouldn't be joining us for the rest of the camp. To make matters worse, one of the other two goalies was a twin brother of one of the guys in jail. He went to bail his brother out of jail and got into an argument with one of the deputies. After the dust settled, no one at the jail could figure out which one really belonged in jail, so they put them BOTH in a cell. They'd called their Dad to come bail them both out, but, according to Rosetti, he's "...out of town for a few days at a conference for men over 50 suffering from ED. Wait, you didn't need to know that, I'm sorry." said Dale.

The remaining goalie took one net and the kids flipped the other net onto the ice and turned it around and the players were told to aim for the netting at the top of the net.

Something also didn't seem right when the scrimmage had to be stopped after one of the kids shot the puck over the boards. The fans sitting in the stands grabbed the puck and ran out of the rink. Dale warned the player to not shoot the puck over the boards or the glass because the 3 cases of official pucks had not arrived due to a shipping snafu at Amazon.com.

Sure enough, one after one, pucks flew over the glass and the players seemed to have major trouble keeping their shots low. Dale finally blew his whistle and warned both teams, "Look, boys, we have one puck left. PLEASE don't lose this one!"

The kids tried, I think, to comply with Rosetti's instructions, but after a few minutes, Walker found himself alone with the puck about ten feet in front of the goalie. Walker wound up for a full slapshot, at which point the goalie screamed "FUUUUUCK!!!!" and stepped aside. With an open net, Walked promptly launched the puck into the upper rafters of the rink, when the last remaining puck came to rest on an I-beam near the ceiling of the arena.

The scrimmage was over when the kids refused to play with the street hockey balls Rosetti had picked up at a nearby WalMart.

I, being an experienced hockey guy, now felt something was clearly wrong.

Part Four concludes the special report tomorrow...

Surging Chinook cruise to 7-3 win over Musicmen

CALGARY –  Barkov scored twice as Chinook win 7-3 against the Musicmen.

Niederreiter, Pastrnak, Pavelski and Weber also scored to help Chinook earn at least a point in its 10th straight game (9-0-1) for an CCHL-best 48 points. The last time Calgary Chinook lost a game was to the same team they defeated tonight, the Dayton Musicmen by a score of 5-4.

Many changes had to be made since that loss to the Dayton Musicmen, who are trying to do the rebuild the right way. Since that day, the Dayton Musicmen have traded players like Barkov, Monahan, Elliott, MacKinnon, Aho, Guentzel and Drouin, in return they acquired 22 prospects and 34 picks, which will be important pieces for the Musicmen in the future. “I admired what Mr. Corfield has done, sensing the importance of a rebuild and actually go ahead and do it just a year after winning the championship. “ Said, GM Eugene Yip.

Carey Price faced 23 shots and made 20 save, who improved to a 16-2-1 record.

“It’s strange that everything seems to be going in,” Barkov said. “You can’t get carried away. Scoring five, six, seven goals a night — it’s not going to last.”

Upshall had a goal and an assist for Dayton, which have not win in its last nine games.

Smith saved 41 of 48 shots of the game.

“This is a team, there are no individuals,” Dayton defenseman Del Zotto said. “It’s a collective effort. And right now, it’s got to be better.”

NOTES:

Despite going for the complete rebuild, the Dayton Musicmen home record is respectable at 6-7-0.

Crosby 2 points put him 3^rd in the point scoring race behind Draisaitl and Getzlaf.

UP NEXT:

The Calgary Chinook will play 4 games in 4 nights, first stop visiting Tyler Hall and the Dartmouth Lakers tonight.

Millers provide no treat for the Miners in victory.

Game Story

Millers provide no treat for the Miners in victory.

CANADIAN PRESS (Sudbury, ON)

Halloween night proved to be no treat for the Sudbury Miners. Zack Smith would provide the trick as he scored 3:13 into overtime to give the Georgetown Millers a 2-1 victory on Tuesday night.

The Miners were heavily outplayed in their first game back after the break. They were outshot 44-19 in the game and the score could have been much worse if not for Miners goaltender Ben Bishop. At times, he was nothing short spectacular in the net and was the only reason that this contest made it into overtime.

Millers goaltender Peter Budaj would make 18 quiet saves for the win.

Tobias Reider, with his 10th goal of the year, opened the scoring late in the first period past Millers goaltender Peter Budaj. Vincent Trocheck and Radim Vrbata would draw the assists.

In the second, the Millers quickly took control and outshot the Miners, 10-8 on the period but could only put one past Bishop. Teuvo Teravainen scored his 7th of the year with Rasmus Ristolainen and Paul Martin drawing the assists.

The Millers continued to dominate into the third, outshooting the Miners 12-4. But, as was the case in the in the first two periods, Bishop turned aside all chances to push the game into overtime.

I think our group proved tonight that there's no quit," Miners coach Derek Sutton said. "There are some pieces of our game that are real good, others are not Picassos. We're trying to put it together. We're trying to work hard and establish a foundation to move forward with."

With the loss, the Miners record drops to 7 wins, 21 losses and 1 tie on the season.

MINERS NUGGETS

- Defenseman Darnell Nurse suffered a minor setback in his recovery from a knee injury early in the second period. Nurse was able to get off the ice under his own power and the initial diagnosis is that he will be out of the lineup about a week.

- With the loss, the Miners now sport a 1-2 record versus the Millers this season.

- Coach Derek Sutton indicated that there will be some lineup changes for the game Thursday night vs. Victoria, in an effort to try and jump-start the offence.

Calgary Just Too Much for Dayton

It's a tough time to be a Musicman these days. Winless in 9 games and at or near the bottom in team defense stats, plus a severe lack of CCHL caliber talent all adds up to some long, long nights.

To be facing the Chinook in Calgary makes it even harder. To face the Chinook after beating Calgary earlier this Fall just seems to be a recipe for disaster.

Which is exactly what happened on Day 58...

 For shits and giggles, let's look at the third period before we look at the first forty minutes.

 In the third period, Dayton outshot the Chinook 11-9 and outscored them 2-1, which isn't too bad.

 Unfortunately, in the preceding 40 minutes, Calgary outscored Dayton 6-1 and outshot them 39-12.

 Calgary was 2 for 5, while the Musicmen were 0 for 3.

"Well, a team like us shouldn't beat a team like them on most nights, " said Musicmen General Manager Bill Corfield. "Given the roster they have right now, I don't think any team can match them right now."

Seven Chinook had at least two points as Calgary controlled the play from the very start of the game.

"We tried to slow them down, but they have some elite skaters over there, you know? We're sticking to the game plan but if you don't have the talent, you're screwed. None of this other stuff matters. Until we get better players around here, this kind of thing is going to happen." said Corfield.

"Tip your hat to those guys, we won't be the last team they have their way with, trust me..."

Up next: 

*The Niagara Falls Thunder come to Dayton for a game this Wednesday.

*Goalie Jeremy Smith was overheard in the shower yelling that he needed a break. Management has been hinting that a switch in nets might be close.  Backup Jared Coreau has yet to appear in the game this season.

*Defenseman Mark Stuart is expected back for day 64 against the Georgetown Millers.

*Matt Irwin has 8 shot blocks in his last four games and is now tied for 3rd in the CCHL.