Saturday, October 22, 2011

Rockets game notes vs. Royals

Tonight’s Preview: The Kelowna Rockets snapped a six game winless streak Thursday night with a 6-3 win over the visiting Vancouver Giants. Two of the four wins this season have come against their BC Division rivals. The Rockets face the Victoria Royals tonight for the third time this season. These two teams met last weekend in Victoria, with the Royals winning by scores of 7-5 and 4-3 in overtime. Following tonight’s game these two teams don’t hook up until November 26th when the Royals make a return visit. The Rockets are 3-1-0-0 at home this season with the lone setback coming October 12th in a 4-2 loss to the visiting Medicine Hat Tigers. Overall, the Rockets have been out-scored 31-21 in their last seven games. Kelowna is in Vancouver tomorrow afternoon (5 PM) before welcoming Prince George on Wednesday October 26th.

Home Cook’n: After playing six of their first 9 games on the road, eight of the Rockets next 10 will be played at Prospera Place. They include home games over Victoria, Prince George, Kamloops, Red Deer, Edmonton and back-to-back games against visiting Portland. Enjoy this stretch of games at home because after this the Rockets play nine of their final 16 games before Christmas on the road.

This and That: Colton Sissons has seven goals in his first ten games. Last season, as a WHL rookie, it took Sissons 34 games to score his seventh goal of the season….Four of his seven goals have come on the power play…Damon Severson’s five assist effort Thursday night against Vancouver tied at club record set by Colin Long, when the slick skating forward had five assists in one game during the 2007-2008 campaign. Josh Gorges also had a five point game (1+4=5) in 2002-2003…The Rockets have been out-shot in three of the last four games….The Rockets have also failed to open the scoring in three of the last four games…Sissons has worn the ‘C’ on his jersey in all ten regular season games this season, but has not officially been declared the captain by the hockey club ….Shane McColgan earned his 100th career assist Sunday night in a 3-2 loss in Kamloops….Adam Brown is second – all-time - in games played by a Kelowna Rockets goaltender. Brown has 155 career appearances. The franchise leader is Kevin Swanson, who played in 167 games in 1998-2001…Adam Brown earned his 89th career win Thursday against Vancouver. Brown is the franchise leader in that category surpassing Kelly Guard’s 83 career wins…The Rockets were 2-8-0-0 after ten games last season…The Rockets have scored 36 goals in ten games this season after scoring just 28 goals in their first ten games one season ago…The Rockets have allowed forty-one goals against in ten games this season after giving up forty-four goals in the first ten games last season….Second year forward Jason Siebert will miss the first half of this season after his broken wrist didn’t heal properly. Siebert missed the final 48 regular season games and the playoffs last season. The Abbotsford product was the team’s first overall pick in the 2009 WHL Bantam Draft….The Rockets are playing their 1451st regular season game tonight and will hit the 15 hundred mark when they host Red Deer on February 18th…The Rockets are in the midst of playing nine straight games against teams in the BC Division. This is game five of that stretch (1-2-1-0) …Ryan Huska has 162 wins behind the Rockets bench…Brett Bulmer has played seven regular season games with the Minnesota Wild, picking up two assist. Bulmer had 18 goals as an 18 year-old forward last season...On this date, one year ago today, the Rockets earned a 4-3 shoot-out win over the Everett Silvertips. Tyson Barrie scored the game winning goal…Former Rockets forward Mitchell Callahan is serving a four game suspension after a hit in a AHL game earlier this week. Callahan is playing this season wth Detroit’s minor league affiliate in Grand Rapids.

Who’s Hot: Shane McColgan has a seven game point streak (2+7=9)… Colton Sissons has points in seven of his first ten games. Sissons has 7+1=8 over that period…Fifteeen year-old Tyson Baillie has points in six of his first ten games. Baillie has 3+4=7 over that period….Cody Chikie has one goal in his last five games after scoring four goals in five games…Adam Brown has started in goal in eight of the first ten games…Jesse Less has points in six of his last eight games.

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