Rockets Blazers rivalry
r By Chris Stanford – kelowna.com
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r Rivalries in junior hockey aren’t created on paper, or in the blogosphere or anywhere else for that matter, they are formed on the ice.
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r Although you can’t take much from their 9-0 record last year, when the Kelowna Rockets meet the Blazers in Kamloops Friday for the first of a home-and-home series in two nights, an old B.C. Interior hockey rivalry may be just be rekindling itself.
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r Yes, the Rockets did dominate the Blazers all last year, including sweeping them in four-straight in the playoffs, but with Kamloops coming back with more experience and Kelowna in a re-tooling phase after going to the Memorial Cup finals, both teams have plenty to prove this season. They will meet a total of eight times in the regular season.
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r In a year of potential turnabouts, Kamloops has jumped out of the gate, albeit with two wins against Chilliwack, and currently sits on top of the WHL’s B.C. Division of the Western Conference with a record of 2-0-0-0, while the Rockets are still winless (0-1-1-0) in fourth spot.
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r “On paper when you look at that team with the experience they have from their group last year, a lot of people picked them to be one of the best teams in the conference,” said Rockets head coach Ryan Huska. “It’s not really surprising to us, they’re very deep at a lot of positions and we have to be sure we’re ready to play against them.
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r “Last year they were one of the teams that scored a lot of goals,” he added. “When you looked around the standings of goal scorers, they were always right up there every night and now that they have that same group of forwards that are a year older.”
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r While the Rockets have lost some of their key players and goal scorers in guys like Jamie Benn and Cody Almond, the Blazers will have back five of their top six scorers, including 86-point player C.J. Stretch and 69-point forward Tyler Shattock.
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r On the backline, while Huska by his own admission would be surprised to see six-foot, seven-inch Tyler Myers back with the Rockets from the Buffalo Sabres, Kamloops will return six rearguards to their lineup from the 2008-09 team, and both goalies in Justin Leclerc and Jon Groenhyde, so they can only improve from their 19th ranking on the defensive end last year.
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r Although the Blazers’ glory days were no doubt the early 90’s when the storied franchise won three Memorial Cups in four years with the likes of Jarome Iginla and a young Cranbrook player named Ryan Huska, and despite the fact that the Rockets only moved to Kelowna from Tacoma in 1995, the two teams have waged many a battle based on their neighbourly situation alone.
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r In their only exhibition meeting of this season, the Rockets won 3-2 at Prospera Place, but with this being essentially an eight-point weekend between the two teams, rest assured that there will be plenty of intensity present on both benches.
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r With the Rockets allowing a dozen goals in their two losses so far, Ryan Huska has used the five off days to work on their blue line.
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r “The bulk of our time has been spent on our special teams and defensive zone coverage, the defensive side of the puck,” he said. “It’s an area that I think with time we’ll get better at . . . we just have to keep pushing ourselves in the dressing room to get better each day.”
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r He also said he’s hoping for more talk from his players on the ice, noting the need to communicate is important for a good defense. “I think a lot of the time when you have some new faces playing together, they have a tendency to be very quiet and that’s one of the worst things you can do in your own zone,” he said. “Guys start running around, and when you do that you’re asking for trouble.”
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r In addition to the showdown in Kamloops Friday, both teams will meet at Prospera Place Saturday. Game times both nights is 7 p.m.
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