And the Salmonbellies are off to Ontario!
Well, the Bellies are off to Ontario next month to continue their quest for their 25th Mann Cup. They beat the Coquitlam Adanacs 11-8 tonight at the Coquitlam Sports Centre, again in front of a largely New West crowd.
Kudos to Bubba Westwood for his breakaway goal early on in the third period. Not only did it tie things up, but it gave the Bellies that extra push they needed to regain control of the game. Kudos also to Adanacs goalie Chris Levis for playing his best game of the finals. And of course, kudos to the Belly fans who threw fish out onto the floor in the final moments of play. Nice touch.
Boos and hisses to Andrew McBride for getting a game misconduct in the first period and to Adanacs' captain Bruce Murray for tossing the team's silver medal into the boards moments after accepting it. No wonder so many Adanacs fans don't stick around until the end of the game.
Labels: Coquitlam Adanacs, Mann Cup 2008, New Westminster Salmonbellies, WLA lacrosse
Way to go, Bellies
Wow, am I ever relieved that the New Westminster Salmonbellies beat the Coquitlam Adanacs in the second game of the WLA finals. You see, tonight the Adanacs had two extra players on their team: referees Todd Labranche and Keith Williams. Only once before have I seen such blatantly biased refereeing and that wasn't in a lacrosse game, nor was it at this high level of play. If the Salmonbellies had lost, this post would have read like a bad case of sour grapes. Since they won, however, I can call it as I saw it. The reffing stunk.
If you look at the
scoresheet, New West spent far more time in the penalty box (24 minutes as opposed to 16 minutes for the As). In actual fact, however, the Bellies' minor infractions usually resulted in penalties while similar plays by the As were considered interference only. What's more, the Adanacs' blatant choking, high sticking (as in a stick audibly contacting a helmet), tripping, and holding went uncalled as was Ray Guze's incessant mouthing off to the refs, especially after each of his three penalties.
I was reminded tonight of the three things I hate the most about the Adanacs. They are (in no particular order): Ray Guze, Andrew McBride, and Peter Veltman (although I'll admit that Veltman was rather mellow tonight).
Way to show support for the Salmonbellies, New West fans. Bellies fans outnumbered Coquitlam fans about 3-1. Not bad for an away game. Mind you, if I lived in Coquitlam, I don't think I'd support the Adanacs. I prefer teams who play hard but play fair. I have yet to see the Adanacs play fair.
Labels: Coquitlam Adanacs, lacrosse, New Westminster Salmonbellies, wla 2008
Bellies stick it to the Adanacs
The New Westminster Salmonbellies put on a great show tonight at Queen's Park Arena. They were a well-oiled machine. I'm not sure what was wrong with the
Adanacs, but the Bellies ran circles around them. Even during the pre-game warm-up, it was obvious which team was in the better position to win. The As looked defeated before the first face-off. And the Bellies' scoring three goals in the first three minutes of play didn't help the Adanacs any either.
The As did manage to score on a power play in the second period. It was too bad. I was hoping the Bellies would get a shut-out.
Final score: 10-1 for the Bellies. Game 2 in the best of 7 is Thursday night in Coquitlam.
Labels: Coquitlam Adanacs, lacrosse, New Westminster Salmonbellies, WLA
What a game!
Well, the Bellies took the third game in the WLA semi-finals against the Victoria Shamrocks. Despite the fact that the final score was 11-7, the game was extremely close. In fact, mid-way through the third period, we were thinking that the Bellies might just end up losing this one. At that point in the game, they were spending far too much time in the penalty box.
Then, when the score was 6-5 for the Bellies, Cliff Smith scored his second goal of the game, and followed up with two more shortly after that. Ilija Gajic added a couple more goals to bring the team to a respectable win over the Shamrocks.
The Shamrocks are fighting all the way. Game four in the best of seven takes place at Bear Mountain in Victoria. I wish I could be there.
Labels: Cliff Smith, Ilija Gajic, New Westminster Salmonbellies, Victoria Shamrocks
