For the Fight Fans

First up, for all the Lanigan boys who check out the blog daily, Sheldon Brookbank made is NHL debut last night and assisted on Nashville's first goal. His wrister from the point was tipped home from Scott Nichol. He logged just over 10 minutes of ice. As mention earlier, now the 2nd "Crusher" to play in the NHL! For more on Sheldon's story check out "Fellow Foley Crescent Crusher Burning Up AHL", you'll need to scroll down the page a little:

http://jonkeen.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_archive.html

It's strange. Actually Sheldon's call-up to the NHL has a Swift Current/Stewart Valley twist to it. He was called up after Nashville defenseman Shea Weber was KO'ed in a scrap with local boy Travis Moen. Travis is another good story. "A local boy done good" as they say. If anyone missed it, here's what happened when he tangled with former Kelowna Rockets teammate Shea Weber.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQaE0TuXCXI

Travis is a good character guy. You can't help but feel good for him. He's been a guest a few times on the Eagle morning show and spends his off-seasons here. You can catch him working hard in the "Training Zone" gym most nights.

A couple former WHL defenseman got into last night. Dion Phaneuf and Brent Seabrook dropped the gloves. Decision Phaneuf if you missed last night's highlights. The two were World Junior teammates in that dream team from three years back that won gold in North Dakota.

How 'bout last night in 'dub? Martin Hanzal and Ryan White dropped the gloves one second into the Rebels/Hitmen game. The two top scorers met eachother in the face-off circle and had some words before shedding their gear. It was Hanzal's first tilt in the league as he rocked White with a hard right hand on the button. White stood in their and wrestled Hanzal down. Rebels announcer Cam Moon was shocked when that fight developed, "are we in the twilight zone?" he asked before the two players got into it.

Speaking of junior hockey, has everyone seen the Kingston/Belleville OHL brawl that resulted in a handful suspensions totalling 34 games?

Here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHjw7Q1b5Bc

Just another night in the WHL. Reminds me of the Everett/Tri-City finish last Friday night. There were suspension their too, but not that severe.

SKILLS CHALLENGE WRAP . . .

I talked to a couple of the individual event winners yesterday from the Broncos Skills Challenge.

Dale Wiese on winning the hardest shot contest with a blast of 99mph "I was watching (Spencer) McAvoy before me and he had 89 (mph shot), I was just looking to beat him, I was hoping to maybe crack 90. I shot 94 (on my first attempt) and I felt it wasn't my hardest shot and just leaned into the 2nd one and it came out at 99. I was a little surprised but I'll take it.

On having bragging rights for the season: "Oh, definitely, definitely I was pulling it out today in practice, telling guys, you know it was a pretty fun time and everyone enjoyed it.

Zack Smith on being the fastest skater had a laugh, "we never really had a race amongst our team, I figured we had some fast guys on our team but managed to pull that event off. They like to think they're the fastest player out there, but I've been ripping by them and I thought they would have got the message by now!"

Broncos and Raiders Friday night, we'll have more later,

Have a great day,
Jon