Thursday, November 27, 2014
It wasn’t that long ago when Micah Sanford was jetting around on skates, a teenage scoreking in roller over at Crystal Palace on North Rancho Drive and in national inline tournaments throughout the USA. Then came his great run with the BCHL Chilliwack Chiefs in ice hockey. Hockey dad Larry Sandford always wore his bright yellow Chilliwack jacket at Crystal Palace.
Micah celebrated his 33rd birthday last week.
He now coaches the Las Vegas Storm bantam AA club which is playing in Riverside this holiday weekend.
The best statistic on Thanksgiving Eve? That would be Brendan Harris’ +9 on the ice for the NAHL Wenatchee Wild. Brendan, from Las Vegas, also has 5 goals, 10 assists and is tied for first on the cub for most points.
Beau McCue, who played bantam hockey here in town years ago with the Nevada Stars, has 10 goals, 10 assists for the WHL Tri City Americans. Those are awesome numbers.
Las Vegas goalie Chase Smith plays for the AA Mission Arizona Ice Red 18u team. He and the team are off to Minnesota to take on Shattuck St Mary’s, then during the Christmas holidays go to Chicago for four games, then get on a team bus and play five more games the following weekend in St. Louis. Yes, hockey mom Erin will make sure Chase gets his turkey tomorrow.
Mike Trimboli’s big week with Utah State went like this: 9-4 win over Texas A&M (Mike scored his 2nd goal of the season), 12-2 loss to #1 ranked ASU, 3-2 loss to Montana Tech. Then Utah State was up three goals vs #2 ranked Northern Arizona, then gave us four goals in third period to lose 5-4. That was a tough one. Mike, from Las Vegas, and Utah State take on Weber State Dec 5-6, then take a Christmas break.
Teenager Michael Cichy of Las Vegas will be having Thanksgiving dinner with his billet family tomorrow in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin. He plays for the River Kings junior team. Michael likes a big plate of turkey and a nice helping of stuffing. That’s what hockey mom Pat tells us.
UNLV is taking a holiday break this weekend. Andrew Tamura (11 goals), Austin Shannon (8), Chris Jones (5), Demetri Culkar (4), Kendall Swanson (3), Drew Bryan (3) and Benjamin Scheuring (3) are the top goal scorers. Tamura is having an awesome season in ice and roller. JJ Hartmann is the UNLV head coach.
Coach Gabe Gauthier and his WSHL Las Vegas Storm are 11-9-1 in their first season of junior hockey at the Las Vegas Ice Center. Top goal scorers this season are Arrigo Burgener (11 goals), Beau Ricketts (11), Kyle Pacheco (10), Vincent Dekumbis (10) and Nikita Larionov (10). Pacheco has two short-handed goals, Ricketts one. Moritz Mazka leads the Storm with 3 game-winning goals. Goalie Patrik Jokela has a 5-3-1 record and leads the club with an 89.7% save percentage.
To Snooks: Yes, every Scott Zucker son and daughter has played hockey including Kimmie Zucker in roller.
On Thanksgiving Eve, the #1 most searched and read story here is ‘WSHL Las Vegas Storm Shocks Ontario Avalanche.’
Number two most read is Rob Pallin – Ten Questions</em>. That interview was written here over a year ago. Folks here never forgot what coach Rob did to elevate the game here in town.
We always begin each morning reading Woody on Hockey. Doyle Woody covers the Alaska scene.
That and this Alaska hockey site run by Talon Miller’s hockey dad Tim.
http://www.hometeamsonline.com/teams/?u=NORTHSTARSBANTAMB&s=hockey&t=c
Roy Henderson’s Global Las Vegas Showcase will be June 22-25 at the Las Vegas Ice Center.
Nominations for the 2014 Vegashockey Awards will begin next week. We will have a chart of nominated players and you can add your choices as well. Voting begins December 1 and the winners will be announced midnight December 31. Nominations include Player of the Year – Ice, Roller; Defenseman of the Year, Goalie of the Year, Coach of the Year; Prospect of the Year, Referee of the Year, plus many more awards including Best Rink Music and Best Snack Bar (Las Vegas Ice Center has won best hockey snack bar 10 straight seasons). It’s easy to nominate – send to leesamuels07@aol.com
—-
Happy Thanksgiving to our rinkboard pals – Steve Allen and George Kemper who talk hockey all three periods, no matter what the score.
