Blades officially playoff bound with 3-1 win over Pats

Rivalry picks up heat as fans heckle Bedard

Rhett Rhinehart (#41) waves goodbye to Logan Nijhoff (#29).

Business is picking up in the dormant rivalry between the Saskatoon Blades and Regina Pats.

On Friday night, a season high 7,523 spectators turned out at the SaskTel Centre to see the Blades take on 16-year-old phenom centre Connor Bedard and his Regina Pats in a WHL regular season clash. It was obvious the presence of Bedard helped bring the large turnout.

The contest itself was a spirited and feisty affair that included some physical play and more than usual chirping between the players on the ice.

Blades sophomore defenceman Marek Schneider, who turned 19-years-old in early February, was the hero on the night as his first career WHL goal in the second period stood up as the winner in a 3-1 victory by the home side. He engaged Pats rookie 17-year-old left-winger Zane Rowan in a short third period fight to gain more stature in the eyes of Saskatoon fans.

Connor Bedard (#98) received lots of attention on Friday.

Blades overage defenceman Rhett Rhinehart was engaged in frequent talking sessions and a few physical sessions with Bedard for much of the first two periods and then Pats overage captain Logan Nijhoff for a lot of the third period.

With Blades up 3-1, some of the spectators at the SaskTel Centre started the “overrated” chant for Bedard with 11:11 remaining in the third and again with 5:45 left in the frame.

The North Vancouver, B.C., product looked visibly frustrated by the end of the night as he was held pointless bringing an end to his streak of recording at least one point in 21 consecutive games, which was the longest consecutive games point streak in the WHL this season. During that run, Bedard put up 45 points coming on 23 goals and 22 assists.

Blades D Marek Schneider fights Pats LW Zane Rowan.

When the dust settled, the Blades not only claimed victory in the game but locked up a berth in the WHL playoffs. The playoff clinching scenario played out due to the fact the Prince Albert Raiders fell 5-3 to the Wheat Kings in Brandon on Friday night.

To added extra icing to the cake for Blades fans, their team has won all five head-to-head meetings with the Pats this season in overtime.

If freelance writer Darrell Utley, who was known as Barney from the bowling alley,” was still typing columns for the Saskatoon StarPhoenix like he did in the late 1990s and early 2000s, he would have likely typed out what it a joy it was to see the “snaky” Pats fans in attendance slither quietly out of the SaskTel Centre after their team lost.

Marek Schneider celebrates scoring his first career WHL goal.

As has been tradition for decades, the Pats had a fan bus and a healthy contingent of supporters on hand for Friday’s game.

During the history of the Blades franchise, there have been stretches of time where Saskatoon supporters have taken the team’s rivalry with the Pats more seriously than the rivalry with the Raiders. Part of that came from a long time overall hatred for Regina, which has been shown also towards the Regina Rams football team in both the CJFL and now the U Sports ranks as the University of Regina Rams during a lengthy stretch in the past.

For Saskatoon fans on Friday night, it was apparent the rivalry between Saskatoon and Regina was more in the spotlight as the Blades faced the Pats.

Marek Schneider was a Blades fan favourite on Friday night.

In the game itself, Bedard had a couple of big scoring chances in the first period. On a dangerous rush down the right wing, Bedard was turned away on a backhand shot by Blades netminder Ethan Chadwick.

A short time later, Bedard wired a laser shot off the post.

With 4:39 remaining in the opening frame, the Blades jumped ahead 1-0 on a goal from import right-winger Egor Sidorov. Blades centre Josh Pillar forced a turnover in the Regina zone and chipped the puck to Sidorov, who was alone in front of the left side of the Regina goal.

Sidorov immediate roofed home his 18^th tally of the season to give the hosts a 1-0 lead.

Egor Sidorov scored the Blades first goal on Friday.

With 3:08 remaining in the first, the Pats tied things up a 1-1 on a power-play goal from Nijhoff. Pats left-winger Tanner Howe had the puck at the right side boards and passed it down to Nijhoff at the right side of the Regina goal.

Nijhoff went backhand to forehand and popped home the equalizer.

Play was fairly even in the first 20 minutes as the shots on goal were tied 13-13.

The Blades dominated the second period peppering Pats sophomore netminder Drew Sim with a 21 shots as the Pats only replied with four shots in the stanza.

The hosts were only able to cash in with one goal as sophomore Schneider blew home a shot from the top of the right faceoff circle to give the Blades a 2-1 lead. Defensive partner Charlie Wright made sure to collect Schneider’s goal puck for a souvenir of that first WHL tally.

Rhett Rhinehart (#41) tangles with Connor Bedard.

Late in the second, things got testy. Inside of the final 25 seconds of the second, Bedard made an open ice hit on Blades star overage centre Tristen Robins in the Saskatoon zone. The hit allowed Bedard to get the puck off Robins and create a scoring chance.

As the time on the clock hit zero, Bedard hit Robins again on the boards. Rhinehart proceeded to go after Bedard causing a massive scrum to ensue.

Ultimately, the Pats found themselves on a two-minute power play to start the third, but were unable to score with the man advantage.

Shortly after that kill at the 3:11 mark of the third, Robins came down the left wing on a rush, gathered a loose puck, cut across the front of the Pats net and put home his 32^nd goal of the season to push Saskatoon’s lead out to 3-1.

Logan Nijhoff scored the Pats lone goal on Friday.

The Blades closed out the game defensively the rest of the way to secure victory.

Chadwick stopped 23 shots in goal for the Blades, who improved to 34-22-3-1. Sim turned away 41 shots to take the setback in net for the Pats, who fell to 23-30-3-2 having lost three straight games.

Right-winger Kyren Gronick picked up a pair of assists for the Blades.

The Blades return to action on Saturday when they travel to Moose Jaw to take on the Warriors (7 p.m., Mosaic Place). That clash could prove to be big when it comes to getting home ice advantage potentially for a first round playoff series as the Warriors, who have a 34-21-3-2 record, lead the Blades by one point for fourth in the WHL’s Eastern Conference.

Tristen Robins scored the Blades third goal on Friday.

The Pats also get back at it on Saturday when they return home to host the Brandon Wheat Kings (7 p.m., Brandt Centre). Regina trails the 24-30-5-2 Swift Current Broncos by four points for eighth place and the final playoff berth in the Eastern Conference, and the Pats have three games in hand on the Broncos.

When the final buzzer ended in Friday’s clash between the Blades and Pats, the teams engaged in one last scrum behind the Saskatoon goal. As the officials separated the players, Rhinehart waved goodbye to Nijhoff.

The Blades celebrate their victory on Friday night.

At the moment, the rivalry between the Blades and Pats has returned at a more intense level. The two sides meet one last time in the regular season this coming Wednesday at 7 p.m. at the Brandt Centre.

It is safe to suspect the drama will carry over to that next clash.

If you have any comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them to stankssports@gmail.com.

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Instagram is insta-crack

Instagram on my phone.

    I tried to resist as much as possible, but bit by bit I am getting taken down by the power of Instagram.

    Due to working in media and communications, I find I pile up way too much screen time dealing with the social media platforms of Facebook and Twitter. I long resisted going on Instagram.

    I constantly see people in their late teenage years and early 20s buried on their phones even during nights out to the nightclubs and Instagram was the platform they were usually hooking into.

    I started my account in late 2014 and didn’t really actively start using it until about a year ago.
    I found it to be a useful platform to share my action shots from sports.

    I have found I am taking more selfies, which is something I don’t really do a lot of.
    I try to use Instagram the way veteran colourful hockey executive Brian Burke uses Twitter and follow virtually nobody.
    I have slowly worked my way to following 13 different entities due to the fact you can follow people and organizations.

Sage Watson’s Instagram profile on my phone.

    I am still in the process of studying how people and organizations conduct themselves on that platform.

    I check out how people conduct themselves that don’t have a big public profile to those in the other end of the spectrum in Canadian track and field star Sage Watson.
    She caught the attention of the tabloid and paparazzi type media in Europe since the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, due to her extremely attractive looks.

    Watson is an old friend I have known a long time from Medicine Hat, Alta., and it amazes me how she gets glamorously portrayed in the tabloid press in Europe causing her to have over 51,000 followers on Instagram.

    Recently, I have found the charm to Instagram at least for myself.

    Out of all the social media platforms, Instagram is the one I find I am most often triggered in a good way.
    I constantly see pictures of people in happy times at least when I have gone on the account.

    Besides pictures of high moments in sports, I see pictures with people in happy settings like parties, a night out, going to the beach, attending weddings, graduations and a whole host of other fun activities.

The Instagram news feed on my phone.

    I used to see an influx of these photos on Facebook around a back of years from 2007 to 2014.
    People used to use simple digital point and shoot cameras and download their photos from fun times to their accounts.

    However, the cameras on mobile phones have become so good people in recent years just post their photos to the Instagram account.
    Instagram is so easy to use on your phone too.

    As for how good cameras on mobile phones have become, my phone takes normal portrait and set up shots better than my digital SLR camera I used to shoot sports action with.

    I can see how going through photos on Instagram can give people constant Dopamine hits. \   Dopamine is a neurochemical in the brain that provides people with a sense of pleasure.

    In recent years, I find people are placing less of their photos from fun times on their Facebook and Twitter accounts.
    As a result, you get left with a host of written posts were people are giving their two cents regarding the news of the day be it Donald Trump, school shootings, Roseanne Barr or Canadian Politics.

An  Instagram picture on my phone.

    When you engage in debates on any of those subjects, it seems all you do is go down a toxic road.
    Besides getting into verbal fights with people you know, you end up spending way too much time in verbal altercations with people you only know online. It seems like people won’t agree to disagree and want to keep on fighting.

    I know for myself there have been way too many times I can’t stand looking at my news feeds on Facebook or Twitter, because it triggers me into moving emotionally into a negative space.

    On Instagram, I haven’t seen anyone one pushing political or social justice agendas looking for a confrontation.
    People can write hurtful things under the comments sections in pictures, but you have to click into them to see them.

    The fun photos make Instagram a more upbeat place to be than Facebook and Twitter, which seems devoid of fun photos these days.

    Here is hoping Instagram can be a more fun escape type place in the future.
    Judging by the numbers that use it, it is a social network you have to be on these days.

Return of Cougars wrestling teams should always be open

The Carillon after the Cougars men’s wrestling team’s second national title.

    I knew it was coming, but it still felt strange to see the dropdown menus eliminated on the University of Regina’s athletics website for the Cougars men’s and women’s wrestling teams.

    The two storied programs along with the University of Regina Cougars men’s volleyball team were eliminated without warning on April 30 due to a budget crunch felt by the athletics department. The dropdown menu for the men’s volleyball team is no longer there too.

    In about a week after the cuts came down, Global News in Regina produced a story off a confidential recording of a meeting between Harold Riemer, the U of R dean of the Faculty of Kinesiology and Health Studies, and members of the U of R women’s wrestling team.

    That story reported that in 2016-17 campaign the administration in the athletic department was told they needed to raise $580,000 in fundraising and fell about $220,000 short. During that fiscal year, Riemer said in the Global story that the U of R athletics department had expenses totally $3.1-million and with $2.7-million coming in to support the department, there was a deficit of $400,000.

    Out of the $2.7-million brought in to support athletics, $2.3-million comes from the recreation and athletics fee that is charged to students and is split between the universities teams and other recreation programs. The athletic teams only collected $445,000 in gate revenue, sponsorships and Sask. Sport Inc.

    Riemer said the U of R didn’t want to rely on fundraising to operate the teams.

    There has been a lot of push back against this decision. An online petition has been started to bring back the wrestling programs.

A couple of items of Cougars wrestling gear.

    If there were thoughts that the athletes would go away quietly when these programs were cut, the administration at the U of R was mistaken.

    With that said, a month has passed and the reality of next school year is approaching. The next three months will fly by.

    Athletes that were with the cut U of R programs are actively exploring their options, because they have to.

    When I was covering the Memorial Cup in Regina, I met personable and talented Regina Leader-Post photographer Troy Fleece. Fleece did a compelling photo essay following the life of Sara Tokarz, who just finished her rookie season with the Cougars women’s wrestling team and is trying to figure out the next move in her life.

    Her older brother, Paul, was with the Cougars men’s wrestling team, and he is searching for another program to join.

    This past season at U Sports nationals, the Cougars women’s team finished fifth in the team standings, while the Cougars men’s team placed eighth. At the school’s athletic awards night in April, Lucas Hoffert of the Cougars men’s wrestling team was named the winner of the U of R’s highest individual honour in the President’s Award for outstanding achievement in athletics and academics.

    Cutting the Cougars wrestling teams is a major blow to the identity of the U of R’s athletics department. You can’t just go and erase those programs storied histories.

    At Memorial Cup, I wore my University of Regina Cougars Wrestling team T-shirt under my suit and tie for a round robin game and the title game at the CHL championship tournament as a show of support to bring back those programs.

    The post I wrote about the U of R Cougars Wrestling team cuts being startling is my fourth all-time most viewed post with over 5,800 page views. In another development since the U of R team cuts were made, my old post of Brock Lesnar of UFC and WWE fame coming to the U of R to compete against the Cougars was rediscovered.

    I originally wrote that post when a UFC card was held in Saskatoon in August of 2015, and it was at 1,000 views at the end of April. It is now my sixth all-time most viewed post with over 5,400 views.

    Those numbers show there is a sizable amount of people that care about the U of R Cougars Wrestling teams. The U of R will face the inevitable of having to induct wrestlers and wrestling teams to its U of R Sports Hall of Fame.

    Due to the fact the athletes from the U of R programs attend all sorts of academic faculties, hopefully, the school can find a way to spread the costs of the athletics program throughout the institution.

    Here is hoping the pressure continues to bring these programs back.

    The online petition to bring back the Cougars Wrestling teams can be found here.

    Troy Fleece’s photo essay on Sara Tokarz can be found here.

    My May 3 post on the Cougars Wrestling teams can be found here.

    The August 21, 2015 post of Lesnar competing against the Cougars can be found here.

Leschyshyn signs with Golden Knights

Jake Leschyshyn has signed an NHL contract with the Vegas Golden Knights.

    Saskatoon product Jake Leschyshyn took another step towards one day playing full time for the NHL’s Vegas Golden Knights.

    On Friday, Leschyshyn, who just completed his third season playing centre for the WHL’s Regina Pats, signed a three-year NHL entry-level contract with the Golden Knights.  The 18-year-old returned to the Pats lineup early on this past season after recovering from tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in his knee on February of 2017.

    During the 2017-18 campaign, Leschyshyn, who stands 5-foot-11 and weighs 188 pounds, appeared in 64 regular season games with the Pats collecting 18 goals and 22 assists. He added three goals and two assists in seven WHL playoff games, and he scored one goal in five games at the Memorial Cup.

    The Golden Knights selected Leschyshyn in the second round and 62^nd overall in last year’s NHL Entry Draft.

Blades sign prospect, trade for another prospect

    The Saskatoon Blades signed a prospect and traded for another prospect on Thursday.

    The Blades signed 15-year-old defenceman Marek Schneider to a standard WHL standard players’ agreement. The Prince Albert, Sask., product was selected in the second round and 30^th overall in the WHL Bantam Draft held this past May.

    Last season, Schneider, who stands 6-feet and weighs 176 pounds, appeared in 30 regular season games with the bantam AA Raiders collecting three goals and 19 assists. He also dressed in six regular season games with the Prince Albert Mintos midget AAA team. Schneider expects to play next season with the Mintos. He isn’t eligible to make the Blades full time out of training camp until September of 2019.

    On the trade front, the Blades acquired 17-year-old prospect forward Nakodan Greyeyes from the Seattle Thunderbirds for a conditional sixth round selection in the 2020 WHL Bantam Draft.

    Greyeyes, who stands 6-foot-1 and weighs 175 pounds, netted 24 goals and 29 assists appearing in 36 regular season games with the Rink Hockey Academy midget prep team in Winnipeg. He also played two games in the junior A ranks with the Dauphin Kings of the Manitoba Junior Hockey League.

    Greyeyes is eligible to make the Blades this coming season.

    If you have any comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them to stankssports@gmail.com.

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    If you like what you see here, you might want to donate to the cause to keep independent media like this blog going. Should you choose to help out, feel free to click on the DONATE button in the upper right corner. Thank you for stopping in.