Posted: Fri May 19, 2006 1:46 pm
The Vancouver Giants have come a long way in a short amount of time.
In five years, the club has gone from expansion team to Western Hockey League champion, sweeping the Moose Jaw Warriors in the league final. They make their 2006 Memorial Cup debut tomorrow night at 8 p.m. against the Moncton Wildcats at the Moncton Royale Coliseum.
The team is flying high, though team captain Mark Fistric remembers when things weren't so sweet.
"It was tough," the hulking defenceman says of those early days. "Those were not the greatest of years."
Fistric would know, because he's been there from the start. He was the first player ever selected by the Giants franchise and played four games with the team in 2001-02 as a 15-year-old.
But now that they've earned the right to compete for Canadian junior hockey supremacy, he likes the way things have worked out.
"I've been fortunate to be with the team since the start," he says. "To be where we are after five years is great."
The Giants only won 13 games that first season and missed the playoffs.
"We had some lengthy losing streaks of 12-plus games," says general manager Scott Bonner, who has also been with the team since the beginning.
But he says it wasn't all bad. Losing helps a team identify the "good" and the "bad" people and make the appropriate changes. He says good drafting and coaching made this team into a contender.
There was improvement in the second season, 2002-03, and the Giants finished fourth in the B.C. Division with 26 wins, though they were eliminated quickly in the first round of the playoffs. In 2003-04, they placed second in the division with 33 wins and made it to the second round.
Last year was a bit of a setback, with the team falling back to third place. Though they did manage 34 wins, the Giants were knocked out in the first round. Bonner says that's deceptive, because Fistric missed most of the season with a pair of broken jaws, which hurt the team.
This past season, Vancouver finished with 42 wins and 100 points, for first in its division. The Canadian Hockey League rankings listed the Giants as the sixth best team in the entire country this season.
They stormed through the playoffs with a 16-2 record and won the final 12 games they played. Their defence was impeccable, surrendering only 24 goals in 18 games.
Goaltender Dustin Slade was a brick wall in net for the Giants, posting six shutouts in those 18 games, with a 1.31 GAA and a .938 save percentage. He was almost as good in the regular season with 36 wins, a 1.91 GAA and 11 shutouts.
"He set a lot of records in the Western league for us - he had a great year," says Fistric.
But it's not just the goalie keeping the puck out of the net.
"We feel we're a good defensive hockey team," says first-year Giants coach Don Hay, adding that they have to be in the tough B.C. Division. "We have to play a tight defensive game and rely on our defensive play for offensive chances."
This team can score goals, but not like some of the other teams fighting for the Memorial Cup. Mitch Bartley was the team's top scorer with 31 goals and 67 points, which ranked him 16th in the WHL.
"Our offence is pretty balanced," says Hay, who won a pair of Memorial Cups in the mid-1990s with the Kamloops Blazers. "We don't rely on any one player or one line."
To illustrate his point, he notes that 10 different players scored game-winning goals during the Giants playoff run.
One player who's provided a lot of offence for Vancouver is Gilbert Brule. He was named WHL playoff MVP after scoring 16 goals and 30 points in just 18 playoff games.
"He's the best player in our league," says Bonner.
If not for early season injuries to Brule, things might have turned out differently for Vancouver this season. He began the year in the NHL with the Columbus Blue Jackets, but injuries limited him to seven games. He was eventually sent back to Vancouver and played 27 games during the second half of the season and scored 23 goals and 38 points.
Brule will be one of the players closely watched during this tournament. He's known as both an explosive scorer and a hard hitter.
While his injuries ended his NHL season, his presence in a Giants uniform has helped the team.
"It's kind of a win-lose situation," says Fistric. "He got hurt, which is unfortunate for him, but he's a huge reason why we're here."
Vancouver is hosting the Memorial Cup in 2007, meaning it plans to contend next season.
"We've tried to put core players in place for next year," says Hay, who has been a head coach in the NHL with both the Phoenix Coyotes and Calgary Flames. "For us this is a bonus. We just wanted to go deep into the playoffs."
