I know enough about hockey to know that making the jump from Bantams to Juniors is about a tough as making the jump from juniors or even the minors, to the NHL. It's a difficult transition. Throw in the fact that you're uprooted from your home town to live with a family you've never met and enrolled in a school you've never seen (for some players, just switching from the Canadian to US education system is fairly difficult) and you can get a glimpse of what these youngsters are up against. And no matter how good you were at the Bantam level, very few players can hit the ice at the WHL level and play lights-out hockey. So, this is what the T-Birds face. And in case you're wondering, the 16 year olds in Seattle's lineup are: Tanner Muth (D), Colin Jacobs ( C), Jacob Doty (RW), Mitch Elliot (LW) and Tyler Alos ( C). But, Head Coach Rob Sumner is confident that these guys have what it takes to help elevate the T-Birds to the next level. It's just not going to happen overnight.

Back to the weekend's games. On Friday night, the T-Birds welcomed the Chilliwack Bruins to ShoWare Center and even lit up the scoreboard first, as Jonathan Parker got past Bruins goaltender Mark Friesen about 6 and a half minutes into the first period. Isak Quakenbush tied things up about five minutes later, then it was all Chilliwack from there. The Bruins scored twice in the second period, both goals courtesy of Ryan Howse. Mitch McColm assisted on both; Brandon Manning helped with the third goal. The Bruins struck again in the third. This time, Ryan Howse got the best of T-Birds netminder Calvin Pickard. Howse was credited with the assist on that goal.
Final score: Chilliwack 4 Seattle 1.
Pickard stopped 28 of 32 shots. Friesen stopped 30 of 31.

On Saturday, the T-Birds and a group of fans headed south on I-5 for a match-up with the Portland Winterhawks and by the time the final buzzer sounded, I'm thinking everyone pretty much wished they had stayed home. The Winterhawks dominated the game from the opening puck-drop, outmaneuvering and outshooting the T-Birds nearly 2-to-1 the entire game. After a scoreless first period, Chris Francis scored first for Portland 3:11 into the second. Spencer Bennett and Brett Ponich got the assists. With about 3 minutes left in the first, Prab Rai scored for Seattle, with help from Jonathan Parker. The third period belonged to the Winterhawks, as the following players scored: Colin Reddin (Assist: Oliver Gabriel, Daniel Johnston), Luke Walker (Unassisted), Jacob Berglund (Assist: Kurtis Mucha <-yes, the goalie!, Taylor Aronson), Stefan Schneider (Assist: Riley Boychuk, Johnston) and Boychuk (Assist: Schneider).

The only thing longer than the score sheet this game was the list of penalties incurred by both teams! Ten T-Birds players went to the box for a number of misdeeds. Eight Winterhawks were hit with penalties. Four players got 5 minute majors for fighting. Jacob Doty and Joe Morrow dropped the gloves about 15 minutes into the third period. Brenden Silvester and Brad Ross got into it in the final seconds of regulation.

The T-Birds face a hard week of practice before facing a strong Tri City Americans team at ShoWare Center this Friday, October 2. The game starts at 7:35pm. You can find more information about T-Birds players, schedule and tickets by clicking here.