Vipers Hammer Humboldt:

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Vipers hammer Humboldt

By Graeme Corbett - Vernon Morning Star

Published: May 04, 2009

VICTORIA – If the Humboldt Broncos had any notions that repeating as Royal Bank Cup champions would be a cinch, the Vernon Vipers all but stamped them out Monday night at Victoria's Bear Mountain Arena.
Vipers' player-of-the-game Rob Short fired a shorthanded goal and two assists as the Snakes pummeled the Western regional champion Broncos before 1,385 fans to remain the only undefeated team in round-robin play at 2-0.
The Broncos, host Victoria Grizzlies and Central champion Kingston Voyageurs are all at 1-1, while Eastern champion Summerside Western Capitals are 0-2.
Short opened the scoring with Vernon's fourth shorty in as many games after Bradem Pimm blocked Brady Wacker's hard point shot and collected the loose puck. Stalling for a moment to freeze Wacker, Pimm connected with Short flying up the right wing, where he charged in to beat netminder Mathieu Larochelle with a quick snap shot.
The Vernon product says it was important to come out hard after the Vipers appeared to ease up in the third period in their 4-2 win over the Caps Sunday afternoon.
"Last night, we talked about coming out with a full 60 and just stepping up our game. It doesn't help them that they're national champions – we were pretty fired up for this game, and we wanted to prove our point that we deserved to be here and we're going to contend for the cup.
"We had different guys stepping up tonight, and it's going to be like that every night. It's good to get a full effort in. It's something to build on, especially early in the tournament. We've got four more games, so we just want to keep building off what we've got."
Had Humboldt had a little more luck, it could have been a different game. Wacker rang iron with a heavy point shot in the first minute, and Dimitri Levin's blast ricocheted off the outside of the post midway through the frame.
"We hit a couple bars there off the start, and it would have been nice if they could have went in," said Broncos' player-of-the-game Tory Allen. "They got a couple quick ones after that, and things just didn't go our way.
"They played it simple, and they came out and were ready to play. They outworked us all over the ice.
"You can't get down on yourself, but we just stopped working throughout the game, and they just kept going. You've got to have a short memory after these games. We'll just forget about it... we've got a day off tomorrow, get some rest and come back to play on Wednesday."
Broncos' head coach Dean Brockman says there were "too many things to mention" that went wrong in the game.
"We got outmuscled, and we got caught watching a pretty good hockey club. When teams get this far, they're all pretty good. To win the BCHL, it's no easy feat."
The Vipers' Ryan Santana, who missed nearly a month of playoff hockey with an injury, completed the first-period scoring when he wheeled up the wing and had his shot from the sidewall deflect in off Broncos' defenceman Kenton Valliant.
"I was a little nervous the first couple games back, and I'm still kind of getting the wheels going and I'm starting to get my rhythm and get in the game a bit more," said the 20-year-old Yorba Linda, Calif. product. "I'm just happy to be back skating and making a contribution to our team in any way I can.
"It's not about who gets the goal, it's more about our team. It's an all-for-one attitude."
Despite knocking off the defending champs, Santana knows anything can happen in a round-robin tournament.
"It's good to be up 2-0, but we've got a good team to face (Tuesday night) in Victoria, and we don't know what Kingston's like (Thursday game), but that's why we play the games. You don't know who's going to win. We just want to keep going and not get too high and not get too low, and keep a level head."
Pimm nearly added a second shorthanded goal in the first minute of the second period when he intercepted a clearing attempt in front of Larochelle, but the Broncos' netminder stuck with Pimm to get a glove on his backhand attempt.
At 3:44, Short connected with rookie Cole Ikkala with a great cross-ice pass for a slick backdoor tap-in to put Vernon in full control.
Midway through the second, the Vipers Mike Collins picked the top left corner on the powerplay, but Humboldt came charging back on the next shift, as Joel Belair caught netminder Andrew Hammond back in his crease with a quick shot on the fly.
Hammond wasn't overly busy, thanks to solid defensive support from his teammates, but he was sharp when he needed to be. Larochelle was pulled in favour of Andrew Bodnarchuk in the second period.
Vipers' head coach praised his players for a tremendous team effort.
"All four lines, all six dee played within the systems. We didn't do too much with it, we just kept it simple and we created some opportunities off that. We were a pretty focussed group tonight.
"Last game, we got away from it a little bit, we tried to do too much. We need to be a simple hockey team. When we're simple, we're at our best and it seems to be when we have our most success.
"I don't think we saw (Humboldt's) best. I know a couple of their top players are out."
Meanwhile, the Grizzlies appear to have shaken off the rust after they hammered the Voyageurs 5-0 Sunday night. Grizz player-of-the-game Jeff Forsythe pocketed a deuce and netminder Anthony Greico recorded 21 stops for the shutout.
Regarding the Grizz, Ferner added: "We know a lot of their players; they're a very dynamic team, they've got great speed up front, their goaltender has been playing very well for them and they've got real good defence, so it's going to be a real good challenge for us."
In other Monday action, Mike Farrell fired the hat-trick as the Vees upended the Caps 7-5.
After a scoreless first frame, and just three goals in the second, both teams combined for nine goals in the final 20 minutes.