After a short six days of camp the Vancouver Giants held their annual Alumni Challenge intra-squad game at Delta’s Sungod Arena that saw a fair size crowd on hand to watch the stars of tomorrow.
Both Coaches in the game were ex-Giant players that had “Bragging Rights” on the line or so I was told by both following the game.
Team Quinn was coached by Montreal Canadiens forward Brendan Gallagher, while Team Howe was coached by Calgary Flames forward Lance Bouma.
I have had the luxury to deal with both Brendan and Lance the past few seasons and not only do the Vancouver Giants develop and produce quality players, they develop boy’s to Men!!
The game saw Team Quinn squeak out a narrow 2-1 win that could have gone either way in the last minute of play following a timeout called by Bouma – that almost worked.
Gage Ramsay scored twice to lead Team Quinn and the game featured Giants “tender” Payton Lee play stellar for the first period and a half.
The other end featured exceptional play of Greater Vancouver Canadian’s goalie Tyler Shurgue who played between the pipes last season in the Major Midget League.
Ramsay got his first of the night a short 2:04 into the second period frame when he knocked a centring feed from David Brumm out of the air and hammered it past goaltender Cody Porter to give Team Quinn the lead.
Ramsay got his second of the night just over three minutes later as he finished off a pass from Joel Hamilton who took a look then send a tape to tape pass to pop in the marker.
Surrey’s Jakob Stukel got Team Howe within one after hammering one from the high slot beating 6’1″ Tyler Shurgue from the high slot.
The Alumni Challenge officially marks the end of the 2014 Giants training camp, not just for some of the new players but also Head Coach Troy Ward.
Pre-season see’s them take on Don Hay’s Kamloops Blazers Friday in Kamloops and you know the joint is going to be rockin!!
The G-Men play their first exhibition home game on Sunday at Sungod Rec Centre against the Kelowna Rockets. Face-off is set for 5:00pm.