Lethbridge 5 Kamloops 4

The Blazers watched as a 4-2 third period lead quickly evaporated into a 5-4 deficit in a matter of 4:13 as the Lethbridge Hurricanes rallied back and then held on for the win.

The Blazers couldn’t bring this one home as their winning streak on the road was halted at six games.

The same penalty-kill that did the job the night before in Calgary when it mattered couldn’t get it done with the game on the line in Lethbridge. The ‘Canes mouldy 8.3 % powerplay scored back-to-back goals to tie the game. Mark Reners scored the go-ahead goal just 19 seconds later at 10:19.

The Blazers were outshot 15-4 in the final period and 40-29 in the game. Brendan Ranford’s hat-trick goes for naught as the diminutive 18 year-old forward is up to 17 goals now on the season.

Jordan DePape was credited with three assists but that number likely will be four after they missed one of his helpers on the Blazers first goal. D Tyler Hansen scored that goal. Hansen had plenty of friends and family in the building. His hometown of McGrath, AB is about 20 minutes from Lethbridge.

Cam Lanigan took the loss in goal. He made 35 saves but couldn’t seem to find the puck in his crease on a couple of occasions. All of the Hurricane goals were scored in a goalmouth scramble situation.

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- The Blazers are now off until next Saturday night when they host the Kelowna Rockets. The Rockets have turned things around with four straight wins after a 9-3 win over Chilliwack.

- The "Brendan Ranford for Team WHL" campaign looks to be fully underway. With the hat trick in Lethbridge, his 17 goals have him tied for the league lead with Vancouver’s Brendan Gallagher. You can’t question Ranford’s style of play either. He plays hard every night. He’s one of the most creative players in the WHL today. I’m expecting the WHL to make good on this and get him into the Kamloops Team WHL/Russia game November 17th. It’s the right thing to do.

- The Blazers will be at Harley Davidson Motors Monday from 3-4pm for a photo shoot. All fans are invited out for this one. The team will be giving away tickets to the upcoming game vs the Regina Pats. Harley Davidson is located on Iron Mask road behind Costco.

- I met Ron Ferguson tonight – a scout for the Carolina Hurricanes. He joined me for our 2nd intermission “Hockey Talk”. His brother Sheldon worked as the Swift Current Broncos Assistant General Manager for two seasons when Dean Chynoweth brought him in. For those wondering, Sheldon is again scouting for the Hurricanes and is basing out of Lansing, Michigan. Ron was a great guest. He provided color commentary for a year on the Red Deer Rebels broadcasts alongside Kirk Fraser back in the mid 90’s.

- I’m starting to get this whole mountain travel thing out in the Western Conference except for one thing…I have no idea what time it is right now. Daylight Savings time takes affect overnight and we are somewhere near Revelstoke where it switches from Mountain to Pacific Time. So… it’s somewhere between 1-4am by my broad calculations. There’s something to be said for Saskatchewan and the fact we don’t touch our clocks year round!

- It’s good to see familiar faces in Lethbridge; The PA announcer Mike LeBlanc was one of our college instructors in the Broadcast Journalism program at LCC. Then there’s Bob Adams who coordinates video for the video goal judge booth. He was the Shaw Cable Director for all of our mobile sports broadcasts. He was very “old school” in his approach with the college kids but it seemed to work. Having the opportunity to call nearly 100 sports broadcasts from University hockey to high school basketball and football was great training ground.