Conference Championship Moments #3
The puck drops on the 2014-15 season in just over a month, with the Winterhawks entering the season with a string of four straight Western Conference championships. The Hawks are just the fourth team in league history to win four straight conference titles, and first since 1978. We’re looking back at some of the signature moments of this era. Please note this is not a countdown, there is no order to how we’re unveiling the moments.
TY RATTIE’S 2012 SERIES VS. KELOWNA
When the Portland Winterhawks swept the Kelowna Rockets in the first round of the 2012 Playoffs, the Rockets had nine goals in the series.
Winterhawks forward Ty Rattie had 10.
It’s a stat you have to double- and triple-check- one player outscoring an entire team over a four-game series? But it did happen- he had a hat trick in the opener, a goal and assist in game two, two goals and two assists in Game 3, and the coup de grace, a four-goal outburst in Game 4 to seal the series win.
With 13 points on 21 Portland goals Rattie was in on 62% of the team’s scoring in the series, and the 10 goals over the four games are a full 20% of the league record 50 he had in his playoff career.
-Graham Kendrick
MAC CARRUTH’S PLAYOFF BEARDS
William Shakespeare wrote, “He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man.”
The Bard knew Beards, and one wonders what Bill Shakespeare would have made of Mac Carruth.
Year in and year out at all levels of hockey, the postseason rolls around carrying with it one of the sport’s best traditions: the playoff beard. Of course, when talking about beards among young men between the ages of 16-20, success varies. After two months, there are some players for whom calling it peach fuzz would be an insult to peaches.
And then you have Carruth, who would get a five-o’clock shadow by noon. Simply put: Carruth was the greatest hirsute hero in Hawks history.
In beard-friendly, hipster Portland, where the denizens will work meticulously on everything from a Vandyke to a Balbo, it’s as if Mac said, “Step aside, Shins fans, and watch how it’s done.”
Every year, as the Hawks went further and further into the playoffs, his beard went further and further down his neck, almost rendering his throat guard superfluous.
Did the beards help? Well, Carruth does hold many team and league records, so in this case, we’ll just assume that correlation means causation.
-Graham Kendrick
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