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| The Blades and Tigers scrum it up at the end of Friday’s game. |
Back in
that era of the WHL, the Saskatoon Blades and Medicine Hat Tigers had quite the
heated rivalry. A lot of the heated tensions were due to the fact the two sides
met in league semifinal playoff series in 1987 and 1988.
Those
series were ultimately won by the Tigers, who advanced on to win the WHL title
and the Memorial Cup title as CHL champions in both of those years.
Medicine Hat claimed the 1987 series in seven games, when the Blades still played in the Saskatoon Arena, and the Tigers swept the 1988 series, when “the Bridge City Bunch” made their first post-season run playing out of the SaskTel Centre.
Medicine Hat claimed the 1987 series in seven games, when the Blades still played in the Saskatoon Arena, and the Tigers swept the 1988 series, when “the Bridge City Bunch” made their first post-season run playing out of the SaskTel Centre.
On Friday
night at the SaskTel Centre, the Saskatoon Blades and Medicine Hat Tigers
engaged in a WHL regular season clash that would have been worthy of the
battles from that era.
There were
huge momentum swings, lots of goals, timely saves by goalies, one spirited
fight and huge scrum at the end of the contest. It was a game that was all over
the map.
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| Tigers C Ryan Chyzowski, left, fights Blades C Jayden Wiens. |
The unpredictability
of the night started in the first period. The Blades carried the play in the opening
frame outshooting the Tigers 17-7, but the Tigers came away holding a 1-0 lead.
Tigers
captain James Hamblin tucked home the game’s opening goal on a breakaway in the
first.
Medicine
Hat escaped the first holding the end on the scoreboard thanks to the play of
netminder Garin Bjorklund. He turned away Blades defenceman Nolan Kneen on a
partial breakaway and robbed Saskatoon centre Tristen Robins with a glove stop
in the opening 20 minutes.
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| The Blades and Tigers engaged in a few exchanges on Friday. |
At the
11:37 mark of the second, centre Baxter Anderson scored to put the Tigers up
3-0, and it seemed that the visitors were going to cruise from there.
From that
moment, it was time to cue the comeback for the Blades thanks mainly from an
offensive explosion coming from their forward line of left-winger Kyle
Crnkovic, Robins, and right-winger Martin Fasko- Rudas. They combined for four
goals and seven assists.
Crnkovic
posted a goal and four assists. Robins had his first career WHL hat trick.
Fasko-Rudas had three helpers.
Just 70
seconds after Anderson’s goal, Robins netted his first of the contest to cut
the Tigers lead to 3-1.
Crnkovic potted his 12th of the season just
a little over three minutes later to further trim the Tigers advantage to 3-2.
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| Tristen Robins had a hat trick for the Blades on Friday. |
With 1:22
remaining in the second, the Blades benefited from a positive type bounce you
would see in an old building like the now demolished Saskatoon Arena.
The puck
was in the Tigers zone with the Blades working the power play. The Tigers tried
to clear the puck around the glass, but the puck hit a stanchion and deflected
to the front of the Medicine Hat goal to Blades captain Chase Wouters.
Wouters promptly fired the gift into the Medicine Hat net to even things up at 3-3. The
tally was Wouters 20th goal of the season marking the first time the
19-year-old hit that mark in his WHL career.
The Blades
kept rolling going up 5-3 at the 1:55 mark of the third with goals coming from
feisty left-winger Riley McKay and Robins netting his second of the contest.
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| Kyle Crnkovic had a goal and four assists for the Blades on Friday. |
Shortly
after the Blades went up by two goals, Saskatoon centre Jayden Wiens, who
stands 5-foot-7 and weighs 139 pounds, engaged Tigers centre Ryan Chyzowski,
who stands 6-foot-1 and weighs 170 pounds, in a spirited fight.
Wiens ended
getting the take down for the win in front of a huge ovation from the Saskatoon
faithful.
With the
crowd still buzzing from the fight, the Tigers scored seven seconds after the
resumption of play with left-winger Corson Hopwo getting his 10 goal of the
season. That tally cut the Blades advantage to 5-4.
Robins
completed his hat trick a little over two minutes later to give the Blades a
6-4 advantage.
Shortly
after Robins third tally, the Tigers went on a power play, and Blades netminder
Koen MacInnes had to turn away seven shots to ensure the hosts got the
two-minute kill.
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| James Hamblin had the Tigers first goal on Friday. |
Still the
Blades weren’t out of the woods. Tigers left-winger Nick McCarry scored with
4:54 remaining in the third to cut the Blades lead to 6-5.
With about
a minute remaining in the third, Tigers defenceman Eric Van Impe wired a shot
off the crossbar of the Blades goal.
The host
side held the fort the rest of the way to preserve their third straight
victory. After the final seconds of the game expired, both teams engaged in a
big scrum around the Saskatoon goal.
MacInnes
made 28 saves to allow the Blades to improve to 23-18-1-2.
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| The Blades enjoy their win on Friday night. |
The Tigers
return to action on Saturday, when they travel to Prince Albert to face the
defending WHL champion Raiders (7 p.m., Art Hauser Centre).
If anyone
forgot how fun the WHL can be, a reminder about how exciting and unpredictable
major junior hockey can be was delivered on Friday night when the Blades
slipped past the Tigers.
Hopefully
work of the encounter will attract a few more bodies to come sit in the stands.
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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