Opening Weekend

Opening weekend: the single most important and most looked forward to time for any sports fan. This isn’t preseason. This isn’t an early look. This is the players that have made the cut; the players that will hopefully be here the rest of the year. The new look of any organization. The season is here. Opening weekend has now come and gone but the feeling still remains the same: the season has started and here we go to a 72+ game year.

This year’s opening weekend was 3 games in 3 nights home stand against the Stockton Thunder. Could an opening weekend have started off any better? Along with the season starting new it was great to see some familiar faces returning to Qwest Arena. Most of the ushers, ice crew, fans and coaching staff are the same; they are now family. Most of the Steelheads are new, young faces with 7 rookies that are straight out of college (no professional games played prior). There are also faces missing that have been staples out on the ice: Darrell Hay and Kory Scoran have left for Europe, Travis Wight is playing this year in the Central Hockey League, Scott Burt and Lance Galbraith are in their second season playing for the biggest rival of them all…the Alaska Aces. As a fan walking into the building knowing that there would be no number 44 (Hayzee’s number), 12 (Burtie), 71 (Galby) and that number 5 (Scorzy) and 15 (Wighty) would most likely belong to a new rookie was a hard realization at first. Once on the ice though, WOW can those rookies move! They are fast, hard hitting and aggressive. New fan favorites are beginning to emerge and can be seen quickly.

Stockton walked into Qwest arena not knowing what to expect from this “new” Steelheads team. Most of the players from Stockton were returning to Qwest Arena playing in the same sweater that they had last year and there were major questions I am sure of what to expect from this very young Steelheads team. Not only that but one of their own, Adam Huxley, had signed to be a part of this “new” Steelheads team. And Hux did not hold back on his former teammates. He came out hitting hard and willing to light a fire when needed to gain some motivation from the bench. By Saturday night we knew he was going to drop the mitts with someone and was not surprised when he dropped them shortly after face off with Garrett Hunt. Watch the clip: http://www.idahosteelheads.com/fan-zone/multimedia.aspx?mediaid=427

Goaltending was solid both nights. With Rejean Beauchemin (Reggie) back in net the first couple nights fans got to see him basically stand on his head to try and stop as many pucks as he could. Reggie did an amazing job in between the pipes at stopping just 46 shots in two nights by the Thunder. And rookie goaltender Richard Bachman stopped 26 out of the 28 shots he faced on Sunday. In all three games the Steelheads only faced a total of 74 shots from the Thunder and the Thunder only scored 5 goals. Now from the Steelheads side of things they manhandled Stockton’s goaltenders (Andrew Perugini and Bryan Pitton) by firing 128 shots and scoring 9 times. What does this tell you about where the Steelheads are heading this season?

Opening weekend was ever hockey fan looks for: 3 good games, 2 fights and 1 amazing season to come. Now the Steelheads hit the road to play Utah (yeah you know me feelings about Utah) and then off to Alaska before coming home for a one game stand. Somewhat a slow start to the home stand series but it’s just that a start. Opening weekend has come and gone…now we get to the heart of the season!

Monica :)