Man, this off-season has been looooong! What with war, war, and more war and with stick time at local rink jammed with pros running drills at one end and kids clogging up the other, I am absolutely jonesin’ for hockey. Since the pros are all back with their teams and the kids are back in school, I’ve been getting back on the ice for the lunch our scrimmage sessions (and boy am I out of shape).

The local junior B teams, the Jaguars and the Pioneers, started their seasons this past weekend. The local Canandian major junior team, the Portland Winter Hawks, have played a handful of pre-season games, and start their regular season on the road this weekend on the road. The home opener is September 30 against the Kelowna Rockets.

There’s some good news/bad news on the Winter Hawks front, as the new owners have announced a new media deal. The good news is that they’re going to televise most (if not all) home games and at least one away game. The bad news? No radio. This has got the old farts over at the forum totally up in arms. I think it’s too bad they couldn’t keep it on the air, but it just doesn’t make economic sense. And the TV deal is sure to bring in a lot more fans. Audio of all games will be web-cast.

The other good news is that they are putting replay screens back in the the old Memorial Coliseum, and they’re doing other upgrades there, to. The Coliseum is a beautiful old barn, built in 1960 in an architectural style way ahead of its time. It’s pretty run down, but with a little TLC, it will really shine. The Winter Hawks are playing all but 6 of their home games there this year (another bone of contention with some of the old farts). Last year, they played half of their home games in the much larger, much more modern Rose Garden, home of the NBA Portland Trail Blazers. I like the Colisuem, because it was built for hockey (the old professional Western Hockey League Portland Buckaroos), and it is a much more intimate venue (something like 10,000 seats for hockey, compared with something like 20,000 in the Rose Garden). Sure, it’s a little rough around the edges, but I kind of like that.

Oh, and hey, I designed a new t-shirt:

Drop The Puck!

This entry was posted on Monday, September 18th, 2006 at 9:08 am and is filed under Hockey, Jaguars, Winter Hawks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.