The Vancouver Stealth and Calgary Roughnecks opened their respective seasons last night at the Scotiabank Saddeldome in front of 11,563 fans in a division rivalry of which the Roughnecks went 4-0 versus the Stealth last season with the Stealth avenging those losses and beating the home team by a score of 18-14 in a back and forth affair all night.
On an emotional night for both teams you could tell just with the energy in the building that everyone was ready to play. After the Roughnecks paid tribute to the late Chris Hall who became one of three coaches to win NLL championships with two teams helping the Roughnecks win their first and Washington who is now Vancouver win it was time to channel all that emotion and give the fans what they came to see.
With the Roughnecks scoring first and at one point having a five goal lead the Stealth rattled off 11 straight goals through the second, third and fourth quarters to pull ahead and never look back.
“I don’t think we valued the ball very well” said Head Coach Curt Malawsky “I thought they created transition the other way, and we took some transition shots from the top and early in the first half we gave them alot of opporitunities, and we only had one five on five goal”
The Stealth went 4-14 last season and the Roughnecks knew they wouldn’t be the same team they saw last season with Vancouver making changes in the off season, most notably acquiring Johnny Powless from the Rochester Knighthawk’s which paid dividend’s last night.
“It was the start we wanted, we went up 9-4 you know, we had an opporitunity to stomp on them and get on top of them and we let them get two or three goals late in the second half and you know that gave them the chance and then they came out and got two quick ones and I think we have to do a better job getting off and doing the little things that make us successful” commented Shawn Evans after asking how they would bounce back after starting the game so well and falling short midway through the game “We just gotta regroup, we can’t hit the panic button right away you know, it’s a long season we just had to get the first game out of the way and watch the video and go over some of the mistakes that we made and clean that up”
“I think we hung our goalies out to dry, a few times and we gotta refocus” said Captain Andrew McBride on the break down on defence and special teams “I thought honestly we had a great mind set and we came focused we had a great training camp and its one of these things and we gotta get a reality that you know what, you can’t come to the rink and expect teams to fold even, you can’t expect a 4-14 team to fold even when they are down 5 goals you can’t expect them just to give up and pack it in you really gotta come and give it all you have.”
Dane Dobbie lead the scoring for Calgary with four goals and a helper while Curtis Dickson lead in points on the night with three goals and three assists in a productive night for the BC native. Shawn Evans had two goals and five assist’s as well as Geoff Snide and Mike Carnegie getting in on the scoring as well.
On the other side of the ball, Ilija Gajic and Tyler Digby had hat tricks and an assist each while Tyler Burton, Tyler Hass and Caleb Wiles scored twice each while having Joel McCready and ex Roughneck Lewis Ratcliff also chipping in for the Stealth. Rhys Duch also continued his league dominance with a hat trick on the night while newly acquired Johnny Powless looked to start gaining chemistry with his new team having a quiet night for his standards only registering three assist’s but looking dangerous all night with his new teammates.
Things don’t get any easier for the Roughnecks as they go on the road next week to play another division rival Colorado Mammoth looking for the team’s first win against a team who they always have good games against and it’s versus a Mammoth team looking for revenge against Calgary who ended their season early last year eliminating them in the first round of the west playoffs.
