The Rundown - Canada West Final

Two teams stood between overwhelming joy and utter heartbreak in this last weekend of Canada West play. As much as we can point at the numbers and trends as reasons for this matchup to be closer than it may appear, we can't hide from the fact that the top-ranked team in the nation in the UBC Thunderbirds were hosting the newly-minted ninth-place team in the nation in the Mount Royal Cougars. One of these teams was going to win twice this weekend to capture the Canada West banner and the Catherwood Cup in preparation of playing in the U SPORTS National Championship while the other would go home, make adjustments, and find a way to break through in Montreal at the National Championship. Let's find out which team prevailed this weekend on The Rundown!

Again, before we get into the recaps, here's the bracket.

As a reminder, Mount Royal defeated the Trinity Western Spartans in three games before defeating the Alberta Pandas in three games to get to the Canada West Final. UBC earned the quarterfinal bye before they dismissed the Saskatchewan Huskies in three games to land in the Canada West Final. Who would be the best in Canada West?

In a season where an imbalanced scheduled leads to two teams not playing in a specific location, it's hard to extrapolate what may happen in a best-of-three series. UBC and Mount Royal hadn't met in Vancouver this season, but their only meeting in Calgary saw the teams split the games. We've seen both starting goalies come up big, and there have been great contributions from secondary scoring threats that have picked up the slack when the top scorers haven't been able to find ways. In short, two evenly-matched teams took the ice on Friday night with Kaitlyn Ross as the starter for Mount Royal while Elise Hugens was in the UBC crease.

Whatever momentum Mount Royal may have had after knocking the Pandas out of the playoffs was quickly snuffed out by an aggressive UBC team in the first period. It didn't help that Mount Royal was called for three minor penalties to UBC's one infraction, but the good news was that both the Cougars' penalty killers and Ross were on their games. Through 20 minutes of play, we were locked at 0-0 with UBC holding an 11-2 edge in shots.

UBC started things off in the middle frame with an early penalty, but they killed that off successfully to keep the Cougars off the scoreboard. They'd do the same midway through the period as Mount Royal missed out on another opportunity. The offensive side of the game was kicked up a notch or two in the middle frame, but the goaltenders were just as good as we'd hit the second intermission still tied at 0-0, but with UBC holding a 29-12 margin in shots.

Another early power-play for the Cougars would pay dividends in the third period. Emma Bergesen's quick shot from the top of the right face-off circle was picked off by teammate Breanna Trotter in front of the net, and her quick move as she spun caught Hugens moving the wrong way as Trotter slid the puck into the yawning cage at 5:48 to put the Cougars up 1-0!

From there, it was about defending by keeping the puck 200-feet from the Mount Royal net as the Cougars kept the pressure up. A penalty to UBC midway through the period started to make time the enemy for the Thunderbirds, and a penalty with less than a minute to play sealed the deal. Mount Royal earned the win by that 1-0 score as Kaitlyn Ross stopped 38 shots for her fifth win and third shutout of these playoffs while Elise Hugens stopped 21 shots in the setback.

Mount Royal's victory give them a 1-0 lead over UBC in this best-of-three semifinal series.

Game One highlights are below!

Mount Royal played a perfect playoff game one night earlier by staying out of the penalty box and capitalizing on their own special teams' opportunties. Granted, they gave up a crazy amount of shots, so that's something UBC can build on if they need a positive. The key on Saturday was that UBC had to find a way to win if they hoped to defend their Canada West championship. Kaitlyn Ross was back between the pipes for Mount Royal while Elise Hugens took her spot in front of the UBC goal.

The opening period saw UBC killing a penalty one minute into the frame, but they'd do so successfully. That seemed to spark the T-Birds as they marched down the ice, Mackenzie Kordic fed a cross-ice pass to Hannah Koroll, and her redirection found the back of the net past Ross at 4:50 to put the Thunderbirds up 1-0! UBC didn't let up after scoring that goal either as they continued to pummel the Cougars with shots. The good news is that no other pucks got by Ross, but the Thunderbirds hit the intermission leading 1-0 and up 14-2 in shots.

The second period felt a lot like how the first period ended as a lot of pucks were reaching Ross and not many were reaching Hugens. UBC's pressure stifled the Cougars at every turn, but they were equally thwarted by Ross in their attempts to double their lead. A late penalty to the Cougars, though, provided the needed chance for UBC as Joelle Fiala found a loose puck in front of the net with a crowd both on their feet and on the ice at the top of the crease. Fiala found room, though, as she slid the loose puck under the pile of humanity at 18:15 for the power-play goal as UBC went into the second break with the two-goal lead and 27-6 advantage in shots. Not a typo.

The third period was cracked wide open after UBC killed an early penalty. Chanreet Bassi stepped into a slapshot with Ross battling through a screen, and it got through the netminder at 8:58 for the power-play goal to make it 3-0. 52 seconds later, Mia Bierd opted to keep on a 2-on-1, and that choice was a good one as she went over the blocker of Ross to make it 4-0 for the Thunderbirds. At 12:06, it would become a 5-0 game as a screened Ross had no chance on Hannah Koroll's wrister from the high slot on the blocker side for another power-play goal.

In needing something to build on for Sunday, Aliya Jomha scored off a set play off an offensive face-off as Courtney Kollman pushed the puck forward, jumped past her check, and centered it to the driving Jomha at the near post for the easy redirection, and Mount Royal was on the board at 5-1 at the 12:38 mark. That goal would as close as the Cougars would get on this night, though, as the UBC Thunderbirds flexed their offensive prowess in a 5-1 win over Mount Royal. Elise Hugens picked up her third win with a nine-save effort while Kaitlyn Ross will need to regroup after stopping 37 shots in this game.

With the victory, the Cougars and Thunderbirds are tied at 1-1 and will require a Game Three in this best-of-three semifinal series.

Highlights of Game Two are below!

Forget the clichés and the wise adages. This game has a simple storyline: win and you're the Canada West champion. We can talk about key scorers and needing big goaltending performances, but it truly doesn't matter who scores as long as someone does. The final game in the Canada West hockey season would determine the Canada West champion, so let's get into Game Three action with Kaitlyn Ross in front of the Cougars' cage while Elise Hugens stood in the UBC end of the ice.

The first period was played somewhat cautiously as both teams were looking to limit errors. Mount Royal seemed to have a step on UBC in the opening frame as they were getting more pucks to nets, but both goalies were good through the first twenty minutes. A late penalty to the Cougars would carry over into the second period, but we'd hit the break tied at 0-0 with Mount Royal up 7-4 in shots.

Mount Royal would kill off the penalty to start the period before UBC went back-to-back with infractions at the five- and seven-minute marks. The Thunderbirds survived those penalties, though, and this goalless game continued. While both teams had chances, we'd hit the second intermission still locked at 0-0 and with Mount Royal leading 14-6 in pucks on net.

The third period saw UBC use their speed to draw a penalty early. On the ensuing power-play, Cassidy Rhodes was the recipient of a Hannah Koroll pass in the high slot, and she wired a high shot past Ross through traffic at 6:28 to put the Thunderbirds up 1-0! Another penalty was called on Mount Royal moments later, but they escaped that shorthanded situation unscathed. A UBC penalty just past the midway point of the period saw another two minutes tick off the clock as Mount Royal couldn't capitalize, and that would be the theme as time wound down as Mount Royal couldn't find twine.

When the horn sounded, the UBC Thunderbirds claimed their second-straight Canada West Championship thanks to their 1-0 win over the Mount Royal Cougars! Elise Hugens picked up her fourth win and third shutout with a 19-save performance while Kaitlyn Ross will prepare for Nationals after falling tonight in a 13-save effort.

With the win tonight, the UBC Thunderbirds eliminated the Mount Royal Cougars 2-1 in their best-of-three series, and claim their second consecutive Canada West title!

Highlights of Game Three's celebration are below!

The Champs

To the victors go the spoils, so here are your 2022-23 Canada West Champions in the UBC Thunderbirds! Congrats, ladies!

With the U SPORTS National Championship beginning in Montreal on March 16, the UBC Thunderbirds should enter the tournament as the top-ranked team in Canada. Because U SPORTS doesn't want teams from the same conference meeting one another until the Championship Final if both teams win, it's very likely Mount Royal will begin the tournament as the sixth- or seventh-ranked team with #7 seeming very likely. If everything stays at it should, that could mean a rematch from the 2020 U SPORTS National Championship with the second-ranked Toronto Varsity Blues. I'm sure we all remember what happened in PEI that weekend.

You Don't Remember?

If you need a reminder, here's what happened in the only game thus far between the Cougars and the Varsity Blues.
Tatum Amy converted the feed from Daria O'Neill for the overtime winner in the 2-1 victory over the second-seeded Toronto Varsity Blues, but they arrived back at their hotel to find out the remainder of the 2020 U SPORTS National Championship had been cancelled due to COVID-19. I'm not saying that they're going in with unfinished business, but getting the Varsity Blues first seems like the hockey gods are working on correcting an oversight in the hockey world.

Except...

The above may not happen this year if the Toronto Varsity Blues fall in the McCaw Cup Final to the Nipissing Lakers. That one-game, winner-takes-all battle will happen next Saturday at 7pm ET in Toronto, so we don't actually know if the seedings for the National Championship will change from what they current show on the U SPORTS Top Ten List.

If Nipissing were to defeat Toronto, that second-ranked position likely goes to the next team in line - the Concordia Stingers. More on this below, but there are two finals still needing to be decided to determine where teams will slot in for Nationals.

Who's In?

We know UBC and Mount Royal are in, and their seedings likely will be #1 and #7, respectively. We also know that Concordia defeated Montreal 2-1 in their best-of-three series, so Concordia will be ranked #3 at least based on their current ranking. If that were to happen, Montreal would have to be either #5 or #8 due to the finalists being in the lower-half of the seedings.

U SPORTS does this funny thing where the champions and finalists of one conference are unable to meet one another on the winning side of the bracket unless both advance to the Championship Final. That means that Mount Royal would be either #6 or #7 since the top-ranked team plays the eighth-seeded team and the fourth- and fifth-seeded teams are on their side of the bracket. With that knowledge, that likely pushes Montreal to the eighth-seed for the tournament after losing two games to Concordia this week.

I'm not sure I want to be UBC playing Montreal in their barn with their fans in those teams' first games, but that's how it might play out.

To Be Decided

As stated above, the OUA's representatives are in - Toronto and Nipissing are heading to Montreal. What we won't know is the seeding for the teams until they play their McCaw Cup game next weekend. You can watch that game for free through OUA TV.

The other series with unfinished business is the AUS Final. We know both UNB and StFX are heading to Montreal as well, but StFX holds a 1-0 lead over UNB in their best-of-three final. Game Two goes tomorrow night at 7pm AT, and you can watch that game for free on AUS TV. If needed, Game Three for the AUS Championship will be played on Wednesday at 7pm AT.

We could still see a ton of movement in the final eight rankings if both StFX and Nipissing were to win their respective championships. If those two teams were to win, the only guarantee would be that UBC is the top-ranked team. Everyone else is thrown into the rankings mixer.

The Last Word

We can debate rankings until the cows come home, but let's focus on how good the hockey was over the course of a full season this year. The UBC Thunderbirds won 24 games - that's amazing on its own! - while going 14-0-0 on home ice. The Alberta Pandas won 11 games in a row as they went on a tear through the schedule. The Calgary Dinos returned to the playoffs, and the Trinity Western Spartans checked in for the very first time in their history.

We had three Canada West players - Saskatchewan's Camryn Drever and Isabella Pozzi, and Alberta's Madison Willan - bring home gold medals for the 2023 FISU Games as those three played significant roles on Team Canada. Mount Royal's Tatum Amy and Emma Bergesen, Calgary's Sydney Mercier, and Alberta's Halle Oswald turned in impressive efforts both on and off the ice to earn conference awards while Alberta's Howie Draper showed that he's still at the top of his game while behind the bench in being named as top coach.

There will be a pile of new foot soldiers joining the nine Canada West teams next September to help those teams in their pursuit of the Canada West banner, but we should appreciate the hockey seen this season because it was incredible. Eleven players hit double-digits in goals, and eight players recorded hat tricks in games. 14 players had 20-or-more points including two rookies and two defenders. Eight goaltenders finished with goals-against averages less than 2.00, and seven finished with save percentages higher than .930.

We finished this season with four teams playing three series where all of them required the maximum number of games to find a winner. Two of those teams will head to Montreal in a week to try and bring the Golden Path Trophy back to Canada West, but it has been a privilege to recap every week of hockey played by these incredible women once again. To the teams and players, thanks for making my Sundays so great!

I will have coverage of the U SPORTS National Championship via The Rundown, and there will be some examination next week when it comes to seeding. The last edition of The Rundown will take place on March 19 - Championship Sunday at Nationals - before we close the book on 2022-23. If this is where we part, I appreciate your readership and I hope you'll be back next season. If you're sticking around for Nationals coverage, buckle up because there's a lot of hockey to recap!

Once more, congratulations to the UBC Thunderbirds, your 2022-23 Canada West champions! To Mount Royal, win it all in Montreal!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

Third Goal In Nine Days

The goaltender to the left is Pyotr Kochetkov playing for the KHL's Nizhny Novgorod Torpedo. As you can see, he seems to be clearing the puck from danger in his stance, and that came into play last night. Kochetkov was drafted 36th-overall in 2019 by the Carolina Hurricanes who currently have him playing for the AHL's Chicago Wolves. I was surprised that no one reported that an NHL team didn't ask about him in a trade with Carolina considering he's already 13 NHL games in 22 appearances, but those stats only get better when you hear he's 26-5-3 in parts of two seasons with Chicago. I'm likely not the only person thinking that Kochetkov is Carolina's starting netminder of the future, but he may have upped his stock with the franchise a little more after last night's game.

It was a Central Division matchup between the visiting third-place Manitoba Moose and the sixth-place Chicago Wolves. Chicago had a 2-0 lead thanks to a couple of first-period Jack Drury goals, and that score was looming large as time ticked down in the third period. After all sorts of chaos involving game misconducts, the Wolves were killing a penalty with less than four minutes to play when the Moose decided to go 6-on-4 to close the gap. Manitoba dumped the puck into the Wolves' zone, and we'll pick up the video from there.
Kochetkov scored a shorthanded goal at 16:42 to put the Wolves up 3-0. He might have done less celebrating had he known that Manitoba's Cole Meier would break the shutout 54 seconds later, but there's no denying that the damage had been done with Kochetkov scoring that goal. Chicago would add another empty-netter from Ronan Seeley, and the Wolves went home with a 4-1 win. Kochetkov made 39 stops to earn the win to go along with his first professional hockey goal!

Officially, Kochetkov becomes the 19th goalie in the AHL record book for scoring a goal. Those names include:

• Darcy Wakaluk, Rochester – Dec. 5, 1987 at Utica
• Paul Cohen, Springfield – Mar. 28, 1992 vs. Rochester
• Robb Stauber, Rochester – Oct. 9, 1995 at Prince Edward Island
• Christian Bronsard, Syracuse – Oct. 30, 1999 at Rochester
• Jean-Francois Labbe, Hartford – Feb. 5, 2000 at Quebec
• Chris Mason, Milwaukee – Oct. 15, 2001 at Utah
• Antero Niittymaki, Philadelphia – Apr. 11, 2004 at Hershey*
• Seamus Kotyk, Milwaukee – Apr. 17, 2005 at San Antonio
• Drew MacIntyre, Manitoba – Feb. 20, 2008 at Chicago*
• Chris Holt, Binghamton – Mar. 19, 2010 vs. Rochester
• Reto Berra, Lake Erie – Jan. 16, 2015 at Chicago
• Jonas Gustavsson, Bakersfield – Mar. 24, 2017 vs. San Diego
• Alex Nedeljkovic, Charlotte – Mar. 10, 2018 vs. Hartford
• Tristan Jarry, W-B/Scranton – Nov. 14, 2018 at Springfield
• Maxime Lagace, Chicago - May 25, 2019 at San Diego**
• Collin Delia, Rockford - Dec. 17, 2021 at Texas
• Lukas Dostal, San Diego - Mar. 2, 2022 at Colorado
• Jesper Wallstedt, Iowa - Nov. 12, 2022 at Chicago
• Pyotr Kochetkov, Chicago - Feb. 3, 2023 vs Manitoba

The two starred goals scored by Niittymaki and MacIntyre were overtime goals, and the double-asterisked goal scored by Lagace was a playoff goal. Of the 19 goalie goals scored in AHL history, five, including Kochetkov's goal, were scored by the home-team netminder.

What might be even funnier than watching Kochetkov's celebration was the fact that he didn't play the final 27 seconds of this game as he and Moose defender Jimmy Oligny got into a hack battle as both were assessed slashing penalties and given game misconducts for their behaviour. February 3, 2023 might be a day that Kochetkov will remember forever as he earned the win, scored a goal, and was tossed from the game while amassing 22 minutes in penalties!

I don't know if Pyotr Kochetkov will ever have a night again like he did last night, but HBIC is here to celebrate goalie goals and Kochetkov is part of that exclusive club now. Congratulations to Pyotr Kochetkov on his goal, and he's now the third goalie in the last nine days to jump into the offence while being the last line of defence!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

Fintastic Voyage

It may seem weird to people, but I had the day off today and I spent it in a local library. While some will yell "Nerd!" about my location this morning, I did spend a couple of hours before lunch at the library doing something I had never done before: converting a VHS tape into a digital format. I knew this could be done, but I had never actually looked into doing it until this past week when the VHS tape, entitled Fintastic Voyage: 1991-92 Inaugural Season of the San Jose Sharks, sat on my desk staring at me. I figured it was time to learn something new while converting this video to a format that can be embedded here, so it was off to the library to try out this technology!

Before we even get into this, a number of you might just point to YouTube where this video has been posted. You're not wrong, but I actually went to learn how to do this. Your local library offers all sorts of services for free as long as you have a library card, and this is one of those cool things I wanted to know how to do. Now that I know what's required, I feel smarter for both investigating and knowing how to do this. Libraries are good places to learn new skills!

Let's get into this, though. Here's the 75-minute video.
Pretty incredible, right? I mean, congratulations for hanging in there to watch an hour and fifteen minutes on the San Jose Sharks' first season of play, but there are some moments that need to be highlighted if you're just looking for the good stuff.

• This version of the video cuts out the entire 30-second clip of Pat Falloon reading the FBI warning about copyrighted material. Honestly, it might be one of the funniest things on the video as Falloon is clearly reading cue cards, and he's very out of his element entirely. I may go back and clip that just to post it online for a few laughs.
• At the 3:15 mark, the Sharks show some behind-the-scenes footage of the "Dispersal & Expansion Draft" that took place on May 30, 1991. Defenceman Neil Wilkinson was the first player chosen from the Minnesota North Stars in the dispersal draft. On the whiteboard, though, you can see the players the team had identified in the expansion draft as players they wanted, and New York Islanders goaltender Jeff Hackett became the first player selected by the Sharks in the expansion draft.
• At 5:49, we move to June 22, 1991 where the San Jose Sharks prepared for their first NHL Entry Draft in Buffalo, New York. Selected second-overall from the WHL's Spokane Chiefs, Pat Falloon is selected.
• At 8:56, the announcement of George Kingston as the team's first head coach is made.
• At 10:30, the video notes that Perry Anderson is the first player on the ice for the first official Sharks practice in team history. Anderson had played with the AHL's Utica Devils for most of the previous two seasons before signing in San Jose.
• At 11:12, the Sharks jumped into the NHL trade waters with their first big move, acquiring veteran defenceman Doug Wilson in exchange for Kerry Toporowski and second-round draft pick in the 1992 draft.
• September 13, 1991 is the next major date shown at 12:52, and San Jose winger JF Quintin officially puts his name into the franchise record book as he scored the first goal in Sharks history. Granted, it was just an exhibition goal, but Quintin was the first Shark to dent twine when he beat Vancouver's Kirk McLean.
• At 14:40, the teal phenomenon is discussed as San Jose's look for the 1991-92 NHL season is a hit with fans.
• At 15:18, Matt Levine, Executive VP of Marketing and Broadcast, discusses how the design of the colours, the logo, the jerseys, and the name was done as a package. He specifically states that the team name needed to be one syllable before discussing the Sharks name. There are a pile of logo designs that are shown in this section, and they may look somewhat familiar based on what we've seen from the Sharks and their affiliates over the years!
• The original artwork shown at 16:04 looks remarkably like what the team introduced in 2016. There's a logo shown whose shark face looks very similar to what the Cleveland Barons wore as the Sharks' affiliate.
• Terry Smith, the designer of the Sharks logo, is interviewed at 16:26 about logo design. This is a very good reminder of what good logos require in terms of their designs and sizes.
• October 4, 1991 is the Sharks' inaugural game, and they'd be on the road in Vancouver for that big night. At 20:55, the Sharks head out of their dressing room while the voiceover tells us that Neil Wilkinson's #5 jersey had gone missing, forcing him to wear #45 in the Sharks' first game! How's that for a jersey cameo!
• At 22:13, Jeff Hackett makes the first-ever save for the Sharks as he covers Greg Adams' chip towards the net with his glove.
• At 22:31, Geoff Courtnall records the first goal-against for the Sharks as he scores on a breakaway, going stick-side on Hackett.
• At 22:46, former Canucks pugilist Craig Coxe puts his name in the history books as he scores San Jose's first-ever regular season goal by beating Kirk McLean with assists going to Neil Wilkinson and Mark Pavelich. It should be noted that this was one of two games that Pavelich played in that 1991-92 season, and it would be his only point with the Sharks that season.
• At 23:13, the voiceover notes that defenceman Pat MacLeod scored the second goal for the Sharks - his first NHL goal in just his second NHL game - before scoring the third San Jose goal as well. MacLeod had five goals in 37 games with the Sharks in 1991-92!
• At 23:52, we see the Canucks score with 19 seconds remaining as the Sharks fall 4-3 in their very first NHL regular season game. Trevor Linden scores on the power-play to push the Canucks past the Sharks. Hackett makes 48 saves in the game.
• At 26:08, the San Jose Sharks, inside the aging Cow Palace, kicked off their home schedule on October 5 against the Vancouver Canucks. Check out the pregame laser show on the ice. Remember, this is 1991!
• At 29:06, you can see the glitter ball that hung inside the arena. The Cow Palace might be the only NHL arena to ever have a glitter ball. It's the only one I can recall!
• At 30:45, Wayne Presley scores the first goal at home for the Sharks when he beat Vancouver's Kirk McLean.
• At 34:02, Pat Falloon scores his first NHL goal, beating Calgary's Rick Wamsley on October 8, 1991.
• at 35:14, Kelly Kisio scored on a Brian Mullen rebound with three minutes to play, and the San Jose Sharks would record their first win in history, beating the Calgary Flames on October 8, 1991 by a 4-3 score! Brian Hayward earned the win on the night!
• The Sharks endured a 13-game losing streak between wins, but they put together their first win streak by beating the Edmonton Oilers 5-1 on November 8 before welcoming the Islanders to the Cow Palace on November 9. If we jump to 38:32, Jeff Odgers scores his first NHL goal against Steve Weeks before Bob McGill's second of the season with 40 seconds to play gave the Sharks the 4-3 victory over the Islanders. Arturs Irbe earned the win against the Islanders.
• At 41:54, the Red Wings visited the Sharks, and this would be the first bout between Link Gaetz and Bob Probert in their careers.
• At 43:03, "The Chomp" is discussed. I won't say more.
• At 44:56, the Sharks record their first road point, tying the Edmonton Oilers 3-3 at Northlands Coliseum. Jayson More and Pat Falloon with a pair were the goal scorers.
• 46:17 saw the Sharks head to Calgary on Novemebr 30, 1991 where Steve Bozek and David Bruce paced the Sharks to a 2-1 win over the Flames for their first road win! Jeff Hackett recorded the first win on the road!
• The Sharks welcomed the LA Kings in the third meeting between the two California NHL teams on December 3, 1991 at 48:27. Brian Mullen's overtime winner would give the Sharks their first win in the Battle of California as he scored the 3-2 goal in extra time.
• Shout-out to Dale Craigwell as he scored his first NHL goal on the power-play on January 3, 1992 against Ron Hextall of the Philadelphia Flyers, shown at 52:41. Craigwell played 32 games in his rookie season, scoring five goals and 11 assists.
• The Sharks won their second road game of the season on January 12, 1992 when they beat the Winnipeg Jets in Winnipeg, shown at 53:33. Foxwarren, Manitoba's Pat Falloon scored the game-winning goal.
• Listen to Doug Wilson talk about Pat Falloon at 56:28. Falloon, who led the team with 25 goals and 59 points in their inaugural campaign, never reached those point totals again in his career. Doug Wilson, meanwhile, went on to be the GM of the Sharks.
• At 1:02:59, the Sharks introduce you to their mascot.
• 1:04:07 saw San Jose thump the Quebec Nordiques on February 26, 1992 as San Jose scored a team-record seven goals in a game.
• At 1:08:50, we see the Sharks defeat the Hartford Whalers on March 21, 1992 for the 17th-and-final win of the season. Dale Craigwell scored the game-winner in a 5-4 win over the Whalers.

From first players selected in three types of drafts to logo designs to a jersey cameo to historic moments, Fintastic Voyage had a number of interesting sections of the San Jose Sharks' first season. For the record, the Sharks finished the season 17-58-5 in 1991-92, 13 points back of the Quebec Nordiques.

I only mentioned him once, but Link Gaetz amassed 326 penalty minutes that season - fifth-highest in 1991-92. To give you an idea of how much the league has changed since San Jose's first season, Nashville's Mark Borowiecki led the league in penalty minutes in 2021-22 with 151. That would have had him tied with Rick Tocchet in 1991-92 for 71st-overall. For the record, Chicago's Mike Peluso led the league in 1991-92 with 408 PIMs.

Enjoy the video yearbook of the 1991-92 San Jose Sharks entitled Fintastic Voyage above. It's an incredible look back at one expansion team's first season in the NHL!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

The Hockey Show - Episode 545

The Hockey Show, Canada's only campus-produced radio show that strictly talks hockey, is going to do the opposite of what everyone may expect - NO TRADE TALK! Our hosts have decided to let every other show and podcast break down the trades seen so far prior to tomorrow's NHL Trade Deadline. Instead, they'll take you through a number of other stories to which no one is paying attention, and we'll get everyone up-to-date on the Canada West scene as well as the U SPORTS National Championship scene. There's a lot to squeeze into our hour, so settle in at 5:30pm CT!

Our two hosts will take you on a hockey journey as they mix business with sport in this episode. Teebz and Jason will examine more regional sports networks pulling the plug on broadcasts, one network trying to reverse the trend, they have an update on the arena situation in Calgary from a very biased source, they'll talk about the spitting incident, there was a major retirement in women's hockey, and a few former Canada West players are on the move. Beyond that, our hosts talk about the Canada West semifinal series that were played last weekend, get everyone setup for the Canada West Final series being played this weekend, and look ahead to the U SPORTS National Hockey Championships as a number of teams have qualified for the tournaments in PEI and Montreal! We'll cram in as much news and info as we can into our hour of madness tonight so join us on The Hockey Show at 5:30pm CT on one of 101.5 FM, Channel 718 on MTS TV, or via UMFM.com!

If you live outside Winnipeg and want to listen, we have options! The new UMFM website's online streaming player is pretty awesome if you want to listen online. If you're using an Apple device, the player doesn't seem to like Safari yet, so if you want to stream the show I'd recommend Radio Garden to do that as it works nicely with Safari. If you're more of an app person, we recommend you use the TuneIn app found on the App Store or Google Play Store. If you do use the TuneIn app, you won't be disappointed. It's a solid app.

If you have questions, you can email all show queries and comments to hockeyshow@umfm.com! Tweet me anytime with questions you may have by hitting me up at @TeebzHBIC on Twitter! I'm here to listen to you, so make your voice heard!

Tonight, Teebz and Jason chat shutting down TV channels, building up an arena, wiping off the spittle, moving on to new chapters, falling short and playing hard, and much more exclusively on 101.5 UMFM and on the UMFM.com web stream!

PODCAST: March 2, 2023: Episode 545

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

Oh-Fer-PEI?

I don't like adding to people experiencing woes. It's not fun to pile on top of someone's misery, but there are times where a spade has to be called a spade. 180 minutes of hockey is a lot of hockey being played, and, coincidentally, the three games of hockey is precisely how many games Manitoba women's team has played as the 2023 Canada Winter Games in PEI thus far. You may be wondering about the tie-in with the image above, and it's pretty simple: the judges - Krusty the Clown, Madeleine Albright, and Rainer Wolfcastle - are showing the amount of goals that Manitoba has scored in each of those games. To say I am baffled how this has happened is an understatement considering the talent on Team Manitoba.

Game One was played on Monday against Team Ontario, and it seemed like this might be one of those games where it could get away from Manitoba quickly. Team Ontario, you see, boasts a pile of players who played on the gold medal-winning U18 Canada Women's World Championship team, so Manitoba was in tough against a very talented squad. At the end of the first game, Manitoba found itself on the wrong side of a 7-0 score against Ontario.

Manitoba would need to regroup quickly with a game against a talented Alberta team on Tuesday. We saw a number of their players on the various Alberta teams that played at the Female World Sport School Challenge, so this game should be a little more even between these two teams. While the score wasn't as lopsided, Team Alberta earned a 3-0 win over Team Manitoba in their game to push Manitoba to 0-2 in the pool.

Game Three on Wednesday saw Manitoba matchup with Nova Scotia who had defeated Alberta 3-2 in overtime on Monday. Needless to say, a regulation win by Manitoba would vault them ahead of Nova Scotia in the standings, so this game was important to both teams when it came to placement in the pool. At the final horn, it was another 3-0 final, but it was Nova Scotia who picked up points while Manitoba was left searching for answers.

Frankly, I'm flabbergasted. Manitoba has a pile of talent that can score, and they have yet to dent twine in the tournament. They did play their final pool game without St. Mary's Academy Flames forward Charlotte Buffie and Rink Kelowna's Callie Rice who were both suspended, but the remaining players shouldn't be struggling to find the back of the net as much as they are. I simply have no explanation for this considering how many goals this team had scored collectively in their respective leagues.

Manitoba will now have to make their way into the quarterfinal by defeating PEI in the qualification round on Thursday. PEI was the top team in Pool C which featured the four teams trying to play their way into the medal round - PEI, Newfoundland, Yukon Territory, and Northwest Territories - so Manitoba will tangle with the 3-0 Prince Edward Island squad. If they win, there's no rest for the Manitobans as they'll play Pool B's top team in BC on Friday. Needless to say, the kids from the Keystone Province have themselves a big mountain to climb if they want to come home with hardware.

The game against PEI won't be some sort of mismatch either. PEI gave up just three goals in three preliminary games, and they won a tough final game against Newfoundland in overtime to push them to their first-place finish in the pool. Brooke Walsh and Emily Gardiner both finished with three goals and one helper, Petra Klimes had a goal and three assists, and Megan Mossey had four assists in helping PEI go 3-0 in their pool play. Of course, I can't compare those stats to what Manitoba has done because three zeroes on the Manitoba ledger is hard to ignore.

The good news is that none of what happened in the preliminary round matters now. If the road to redemption goes through PEI and BC, that's the path that Manitoba will need to take. As those who beat the odds will tell you, if you want to dance, you have to make the dance. Manitoba has their dancing shoes ready, so now it's time for them to show that the previous three games weren't indicative of how well Team Manitoba can dominate on the ice. The slate is wiped clean, so make the most of it!

Gear up, Manitoba, and win against PEI. Heck, just score a goal and build from there. I have a feeling that once one goes in, the dam will burst and the goals will be frequent. As I said before, though, there's simply too much talent on Team Manitoba for them to be shutout in a fourth-straight game at this tournament. One win, though, will send the Manitobans to the quarterfinals, and there's a whole province cheering for you back home!

It starts against the hosts tomorrow. Show no mercy, Manitoba!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!