Monday, 16 March 2009

Regular Season Over...Awards Handed Out...Playoff Time!

Well, a regular season that was up and down for the Lethbridge Hurricanes wrapped up yesterday with a 6-2 home-ice loss to the Calgary Hitmen.

Lethbridge finishes the regular season with a record of 35-32-3-2 for 75 points and 7th place in the Eastern Conference. They will take on the 2nd place Saskatoon Blades in a best of 7 series beginning this Friday and Saturday at Credit Union Centre. The series switches back to Lethbridge for games 3 and 4 Tuesday and Wednesday March 24th and 25th.

Yesterday's final game of the 08-09 regular season saw the Canes' take on the best in the WHL, the Calgary Hitmen. The game was tied at two after one period of play. The Hitmen added two more in the second and two more in the 3rd to win in 6-2. Calgary scored twice on the power play and once short-handed. Lethbridge scored both it's goals with the man advantage, both by Colton Sceviour. The Hitmen finish the regular season with an amazing 122 points. One of the best finishes by any team in the history of the league.

Before last night game, the Hurricanes handed out their regular season awards. Here's a rundown on the award winners:

Most Sportsmanlike Award
Brent Henke

Hit of the Game Award
Mitch Versteeg

Community Relations Award
Carter Ashton and Carter Bancks

Top Scorer Award
Colton Sceviour

Plus/Minus Award
Zach Boychuk

Best Defensive Forward Award
Drew Hoff

Scholastic Player of the Year Award
Brennan Yadlowski

The Top Draft Prospect
Carter Ashton

The Hardest Working Hurricane Award
Cam Braes

Most Improved Player Award
Brennan Yadlowski and Garrett Taylor

Most Popular Player Award (as voted by the fans)
Carter Bancks

Most Popular Player Award (as voted by the players)
Craig Orfino

Top Defenseman Award
Ben Wright

Most Underrated Player Award
Colton Sceviour

Three Stars Award
Carter Ashton

The Carl Trentini Memorial Award (Hurricanes Rookie of the year)
Austin Fyten

The Joan Kobal Memorial for Perseverance, Dedication and Sportsmanship Award
Craig Orfino

The Harry Ingarfield Memorial Award (Most Valuable Player)
Juha Metsola and Zach Boychuk

Now that the playoffs are set the focus clearly moves to this upcoming series with Saskatoon. I think this should be a good first round match-up and a tough one to call. This series could come down to goaltending. A battle between Saskatoon's Braden Holtby and the Hurricanes Juha Metsola. Metsola is still recovering from the injury he suffered in Cranbrook on Saturday. Hopefully he'll be ready to go for game one, but we'll have to see how he feels as this week moves on. There's no question Juha is key to the Hurricanes success. He wouldn't have been a co-winner of the MVP award if he wasn't.

Tonight on CJOC, our last "Hurricanes This Week" talk show of the season. It'll be our playoff preview show and final media round table. Fred Jack and I will be joined by Paul Kingsmith from Global TV, Dylan Purcell from the Lethbridge Herald, and Darryl Rumold from CTV. The show starts at 7pm.

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