Showing posts with label Cole Clayton. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cole Clayton. Show all posts

Sunday, 28 February 2021

Tigers trounce Rebels 7-2 for Ridley’s 4,000th call

Bob Ridley calls a Tigers playoff game in March of 2019.
With their icon in broadcast booth celebrating a milestone that will likely never happen again, the Medicine Hat Tigers ensured the night went as perfectly as possible.

Just 36 seconds into their WHL regular season clash with the visiting Red Deer Rebels at the Co-op Place, overage defenceman Cole Clayton fired home a point shot to give the Tigers a 1-0 lead. By the 13:07 mark of the opening frame, the Tigers advantage surged to 4-0.

Medicine Hat rolled to a 7-2 victory from that point.

The win put the icing on the cake on a milestone night for Bob Ridley, who has been the only play-by-play voice the Tigers have had since the modern version of the club began play in the 1970-71 season.

On Saturday, Ridley called his 4,000th game as the team’s play-by-play voice. The total includes 3,568 of the Tigers 3,569 regular season games, the club’s one standings tiebreaker game, all of their 411 games in the WHL playoffs and all 20 of their contests in the Memorial Cup tournament.

The Tigers won the Memorial Cup as CHL champions in 1987 and 1988.

No one has called more games as the play-by-play voice of one team in the sport of hockey as Ridley has. He drove the Tigers team bus over most of that stretch as well.

At the moment, it would take someone calling 80 games a season for 50 seasons to just equal Ridley’s total of calling 4,000 games.

Before Ridley called his 4,000th game on Saturday, the WHL announced they had created the Bob Ridley Award For Media Excellence to be presented annually to a member of the radio, television and print journalism industry in recognition of their outstanding contributions to sports journalism and the WHL.

Ridley was named the inaugural winner of the honour and was presented with the award by WHL commissioner Ron Robison during a special ceremony at Co-op Place on Saturday afternoon.

As for Saturday’s game itself, a special tribute video was played at the Tigers home rink before puck drop. Video messages were played from numerous Tigers alumni during breaks as Saturday’s contest moved along.

On social media lines, tribute messages poured in before, during and after the game.

Due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic that has gripped the world, Saturday’s game was played without fans in attendance. It would have made the night even more perfect, if Ridley could have received a standing ovation from a sold out building.

That development allowed all of the Tigers fans and just overall hockey fans the chance to listen to Ridley call the game on CHAT 94.5 FM either on the radio waves in Medicine Hat and area or online around the world.

The 76-year-old product of Vulcan, Alta., was at the top of his game flanked by long time colour commentator Barry Prins, who sat in the neighbouring booth.

Listeners were able to quickly get drawn into the contest with Clayton’s goal 36 seconds into the game, which allowed Ridley to break into his classic call, “He scooorrrrrrrres!”

Just under three minutes later, Tigers overage captain Ryan Chyzowski struck on the power play to give the host side a 2-0 lead.

Right-winger Lukas Svejkovsky scored on a breakaway at the 12:11 mark of the first to increase the Tigers advantage to 3-0. Just 56 seconds later, Tigers 16-year-old rookie centre Oasiz Wiesblatt stole the puck from a Rebels player at the Red Deer blue-line, broke into the offensive zone and roofed a shot past Rebels netminder Byron Fancy.

The tally was Wiesblatt’s first career WHL goal.

Fancy was pulled after that tally having stopped 8-of-12 shots sent his way. Overager Ethan Anders played the rest of the contest in relief turning away 18-of-20 shots sent in his direction.

Red Deer did attempt to battle back. Overage centre Chris Douglas scored for the Rebels with 1:34 remaining in the second to trim the Tigers lead to 4-1.

Rebels 18-year-old defenceman Chase Leslie netted a single at the 4:22 mark of the third to further cut the Tigers lead to 4-2.

Rookie left-winger Brayden Boehm, who turned 17-years-old in January, restored order for the Tigers netting his first career WHL goal at the 12:08 mark of the third. Boehm converted a backdoor pass from linemate Caleb Willms to give the hosts a 5-2 advantage.

Red Deer pulled Anders for an extra attacker with about three minutes to play in the third, which allowed Tigers overage centre Brett Kemp to score into an empty net to increase the home side’s edge to 6-2.

Noah Danielson, an 18-year-old centre, added a single to round out the scoring in the 7-2 victory for Medicine Hat.

Garin Bjorklund stopped 18 shots to pick up the win in goal for the Tigers.

Clayton had three assists and a plus-three rating in the plus-minus department to go with his goal.

Saturday’s contest was the Tigers home opener in a campaign that started late and was shortened due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Tigers improved to 2-0 with the win, while the Rebels fell to 0-1-1. Medicine Hat beat the Rebels 5-4 in overtime at the Westerner Park Centrium in Red Deer on Friday.

The Tigers are slated to return to action this coming Friday, when they travel to Edmonton to face the Oil Kings (2-0).

While the Tigers had a great game on the ice Saturday, the night belonged to Ridley. He will always be “the Dean” of major junior hockey broadcasters, and one day there should be a place for him in the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Originally, Ridley’s 4,000th game call was slated to take place on Saturday, March 14, 2020 at Co-op Centre in a regular season clash against the Swift Current Broncos. That moment was expected to be high point for the Tigers, who were skating through their 50th season in the 2019-20 campaign.

Of course, the 2019-20 WHL campaign was paused on March 12, 2020 before being ultimately cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic leaving Ridley’s games called total stuck at 3,998.

With the WHL’s Central Division returning to play with the circuit’s five Alberta-based teams, Ridley was able to make his 4,000th game broadcast a reality on Saturday with the Tigers skating through their 51st season.

The fact that Ridley’s 4,000th broadcast has now happened does give a moment where you have those warm and fuzzy feelings inside.

It was such a welcome development to once again hear Ridley call Tigers games, and for him to close Saturday’s broadcast with his classic, “We bid you all a very pleasant good night.”

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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Friday, 29 September 2017

Tigers take Blades to school

Blades D Libor Hajek, left, and Tigers RW Max Gerlach battle for the puck.
    What started out as a tough day for the Saskatoon Blades off the ice didn’t get any easier on the ice.
    At around 3 p.m., the Blades sent out a tweet on social media to announce that former captain Bruce Gordon, who was battling pancreatic cancer, had passed away. The retired 28-year veteran of the Saskatoon Police Service was 54-years-old.
    The Blades honoured Gordon during a magnificent pre-game ceremony before 7,460 spectators at the team’s home opener just seven nights earlier back on Sept. 22. When it came time to play on Friday night, news of Gordon’s passing was still making its way among the 2,457 spectators at the SaskTel Centre.
    A moment of silence was held for Gordon before Friday’s game.
    Saskatoon proceeded to find out you don’t get any breaks in a rough spot when you play one of the WHL’s elite franchises. The visiting Medicine Hat Tigers came in, rolled out to a 6-0 edge after two periods and cruised to a 6-2 victory.
Max Gerlach had two goals and two assists for the Tigers.
    The Tigers also happen to be the first WHL club Gordon played for, and he helped the Tigers advance to the WHL Eastern Conference championship series during his rookie campaign in 1979-80. Gordon came to the Blades in a trade early in the 1980-81 season and remained with the Saskatoon club through the end of the 1981-82 campaign.
    The Blades roster is still on the younger side, and they were taken to school on Friday night by a visitor that plays at a high level night in and night out.
    The Tigers were a step ahead of the Blades all night. Medicine Hat got the puck deep in the Saskatoon zone, and the Tigers forwards forechecked the Blades defenders hard.
    Medicine Hat’s players didn’t exactly get physical in the corners. They were on top of the Saskatoon skaters using stick checks to cause turnovers and making it miserable to for the Blades to advance the puck up the ice.
    When the Tigers had the puck, their up tempo offensive style hit top gear. Medicine Hat’s players seem to just throw the puck around almost with a high comfort level knowing their passes were going on to be on the tape of the stick of an open teammate.
Captain Mark Rassell (#27) score twice for the Tigers.
    Just 6:33 into the first period, the Tigers assumed a 2-0 lead on a pair of goals from star 19-year-old right-winger Max Gerlach. Gerlach’s second tally came off a Blades giveaway.
    The Blades did have some fight in the opening 20 minutes holding a 9-8 edge in the shots on goal department. Saskatoon wasn’t able to find that one moment of traction to turn the game around, and the Tigers buried them in the second period.
    Working on the power play, Tigers overage captain Mark Rassell scored on the back door of the Saskatoon goal to give the Tigers a 3-0 lead at the 6:51 mark of the second. Exactly one minute later, Tigers defenceman Cole Clayton fired home a point shot to put the visitors up 4-0.
Gage Ramsay, left, netting the Blades second goal in the third period.
    At the 10:09 mark, the Tigers were working on another power play, and left-winger Ryan Jevne did his best imitation of Regina Pats superstar Sam Steel driving home a set-up pass from the left corner boards on the edge of the faceoff circle to give Medicine Hat a 5-0 lead.
    That tally chased Blades starting goaltender Ryan Kubic from the net. He made 11 saves on 16 shots.
    Joel Grzybowski, who is an 18-year-old rookie, turned aside 15-of-16 shots in a relief effort for Saskatoon. Rassell beat the Hafford, Sask., product on a breakaway with 13 seconds to play in the second period.
    Gerlach had helpers on two of the Tigers four goals in the second stanza.
Goaltender Michael Bullion (#30) freezes the puck for the Tigers.
    In the third, the Tigers were content to dump the puck into the Blades zone and proceed to forecheck and trap. The visitors still got 13 shots on goal in the final frame.
    Saskatoon got a little burst of momentum scoring two goals 49 seconds apart from each other coming from the sticks of Chase Wouters and Gage Ramsay to cut the Medicine Hat lead to 6-2. The Tigers called a timeout after the second Blades goal to settle things down. The hosts were unable to muster anymore chances to get closer on the scoreboard.
    Overage netminder Michael Bullion turned away 21 shots to help the Tigers improve to 2-1. Medicine Hat travels to Prince Albert on Saturday to face the Raiders.
The Tigers celebrate their 6-2 victory over the Blades.
    The Blades return to action on Saturday, when they host the Calgary Hitmen at 7 p.m. at the SaskTel Centre.
    Having fallen to the Swift Current Broncos 5-2 in their home opener, the Blades are 0-2 having falling to two teams that expect to be among the WHL’s best this season. While the Blades don’t have the combination of talent and experience the Broncos and Tigers have, the Saskatoon side has to come to the rink and play at a higher pace to cut the drawback of that factor down.
    If the Blades don’t play at a higher pace, there will be a few more 6-2 scores in favour of the opposition in the future.

    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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