Giants Double Up Tri-City

In a pair of weekend double headers the Vancouver Giants managed to outscore their opposition by a 9-4 margin defeating both the Tri-City Americans as well as the Brandon Wheat Kings.

Friday’s contest saw the Americans outshoot the G-men by a 39-24 margin in a game that saw Tri-City usee both “tenders” while the G-men went with Broke Hood who went the full sixty.

The G-men managed a pair of goals in each period while the Americans were only able to get one past Hood in each period while the Americans were 0-4 on the PP while the Giants managed one goal on four power plays.

It was interesting to note that Friday’s home game against Tri-City will see the proceeds help those impacted by the recent LA wildfires.

Proceeds from the Chuck-a-Puck will go directly to Home Bank LA, an extension of the non-profit A Sense of Home (ASOH) – which has perfected the systems of collecting and distributing furniture and home goods to those who need it urgently — turning empty spaces into homes. 

The leadership at ASOH has launched Home Bank LA to harness its unique expertise and expand its reach to those who have been devastated by the fires. Giants co-owner Drew Scott is a board member of ASOH.

Scott mentioned “I’m grateful to the Vancouver Giants and my hometown community for their help in supporting the immediate needs of those impacted by the devastating wildfires in Los Angeles,”

He continued.“Proceeds raised from the Chuck-A-Puck will help fund Home Bank LA, which is dedicated to providing essential home items to families and individuals who have lost everything.”

The win  over Tri-City improves Vancouver’s record to 21-16-5, while the American’s drop to 21-15-3-1. 

Vancouver now sits in sixth place in the Western Conference with the G-Men holding a 8-3-1 record in their last 12 games.

Cameron Schmidt led the way for Vancouver collecting two goals (30th and 31st) of the season that saw four others find the back of the net: Maxim Muranov (12th), Mazden Leslie (10th), Brett Olson (4th) and Ty Halaburda (16th). 

Ryan Lin had three assists that sees him break the Giants franchise record for points by a 16-year-old defenceman at 33 (3G-30A). Goaltender Burke Hood improved to 9-6-4 on the season with a 36-save performance.

Tri-City managed to get a pair of goals from Carter MacAdams and a first period goal from Max Curran.

Giants Head Coach Manny Viveiros told the media following the game “There were a lot of good things tonight. There’s no question about it. Parts of the game I really thought [were] really excellent. How we looked and how we’re playing, we’re connected, and then we get up 4-1, and then we took our foot off the gas pedal, and they come back and it’s gonna happen. You’re gonna have ebbs and flows, and you’re gonna have momentum swings and stuff like that, and getting back to what you said before, Burke [Hood] was there to kill the momentum. So that was really good.” – “With our group here, we want to get ourselves to eventually being one of the top teams [in the league]. We’re always trying to get better and better.”

He continued “I’m very happy with the result and for the most part how we played the game, but when we look back on it – and the players know too – we got loose in some areas. 

Good teams, especially after Christmas, good teams in the Western Hockey League that go on and have a chance to win a championship have to be able to do that and that’s something that we’re still learning and in the process of doing that, as far as, in a 4-1 hockey game, we don’t need to open up. 

Especially up until then, we were doing the right things and we were creating so many offensive chances because we were playing the game the correct way and then once we got up to 4-1, we kind of just relaxed a little bit and you can’t do that in this league. 

We’ve done it to teams and teams have done it to us.”