Prairie homecoming for some Giants
Vancouver starts WHL finals on road, but will have some fans of its own in Prince Albert
The Prince Albert Raiders clinching a spot in the WHL championship clinched Dawson Holt’s phone going bonkers.
“It was basically, ‘Hope you can get a lot of tickets,’ ” said Holt, a right-winger whose Vancouver Giants open up the best-of-seven league championship against the Raiders on Friday at the Art Hauser Centre in Prince Albert, a 90-minute drive northeast of his family’s Saskatoon home.
“Obviously, it’s cool no matter what. I’d love to play in the WHL final any place in the entire world. But it’s nice that it’s back home, so I will have that family support there with how many people end up coming and how many tickets we can get.”
Prince Albert guaranteed entry to the WHL’s Big Dance on Sunday, a 4-2 win over the Edmonton Oil Kings giving the Raiders the Eastern Conference championship in six games.
The Giants assured themselves a spot on Friday, finishing off the Western Conference finale in five games with a 3-2 win over the Spokane Chiefs.
Prince Albert (54-10-2-2) won the regular season pennant in the 22-team league, so the Raiders have home-ice advantage for this series. Vancouver (48-15-3-2) was the runner-up, finishing 11 points back.
The WHL weights its schedule heavily toward division and conference games. It keeps costs down and lessens the time away from school.
Because of that, Vancouver played 36 of its 68 regular-season games this season against the four other teams in the B.C. Division. It also means that in the last five years the Giants have played in Prince Albert just twice. They also played on the road twice against the Saskatoon Blades and Regina Pats, for instance.
That can’t help but add to the meaning of this series for Holt, 20, and the other Saskatchewan natives on the team. Defenceman Kaleb Bulych, 19, is from Yorkton, which is about a four-hour drive southeast. Defenceman Alex Kannok Leipert, 18, hails from Regina, which is three hours south. Centre Jared Dmytriw, 21, is from Craven, which is 30 minutes north of Regina.
Holt remembers playing a tournament in the Art Hauser Centre as a 10-year-old and thinking, “how cool it was to be playing in a WHL rink.” Kannok Leipert guesses he’s played in the rink “15 or 16 times, but I’ve never seen it packed like it’s going to be.”
The Raiders list capacity for the Art Hauser Centre at 3,299, including 708 standing-room spots. It is one of the smaller rinks in the WHL.
It will be interesting to see how many Giants fans get into that crowd for Games 1 and 2, which goes Saturday. They could have a few, it would seem.
“It started to set in yesterday when family members and other people from Regina were asking about it and asking about tickets that this is my turf, my stomping grounds,” said Kannok Leipert. “I know some people will be making the trip up. It will be cool to be playing out in Saskatchewan for a bit.”
The Giants and Raiders have both lost just once on home ice through eight starts in their respective rinks in these playoffs.
For the Raiders, it was a 4-3 overtime decision to Edmonton in Game 2 of the Eastern final.
Prince Albert was 28-4-2-0 at the Art Hauser in the regular season, while Vancouver was four points back with their 26-6-1-1 at the Langley Events Centre. Those were the two best records on home ice in the WHL this season.
Vancouver’s mark includes a 3-1 win over Prince Albert in a Jan. 24 game at the LEC. That was the lone time the teams met this year. Vancouver recorded a 5-4 overtime win in Prince Albert last season on Oct. 17, 2017.
The Giants are in the WHL final for the first time since 2006-07, when they lost in seven games to the Medicine Hat Tigers. Vancouver was hosting the Memorial Cup national tournament that season and went on to defeat the Tigers in the Memorial Cup championship game.
Prince Albert hasn’t been to the league final since winning it in 1984-85.
The Memorial Cup goes May 16-26 in Halifax.