Western Conf Scores

[GROWL]

Southside Snipers defeat Colorado Springs Thunder 2 games to 1

Game 1: 5-2 Thunder
Game 2: 5-3 Snipers
Game 3: 7-4 Snipers

[teamcarramrod]

who was ranked what in the West?

[old hockey mom]

From the program:

Thunder 1st
Phoenix 2nd
Mustangs 3rd
Snipers 4th

The Phoenix Dragons ended up beating the NorCal Mustangs in the 2nd and 3rd games. So, it's the Snipers and the Dragons.

[teamcarramrod]

no offense to the Snipers, but I am really surprised that the Thunder lost. Their team is just stacked

[scotty b]

Im not to suprised. They have 1 really really good line, and the second is nowhere close to that. A solid team with 2-3 lines has a chance if they don't take penalties and can try and hold the big line in check. Sounds like some good games though. Congrats to the winners.

[old hockey mom]

The Dragons ended up beating the Snipers in 3 out of 4.

[eXpress19]

Wow Dragons beating the Snipers in 4 games is quite a surprise to me. I for one have not been following them at all being out on the East Coast, but still I did not expect a first year team out of Phoenix Arizona to compete and defeat all of the best teams in the West. Hats off to them and I hope they can pull off it all. On the other side, I would love to see the Blaze win it all because it would mean the Northeast is just stacked with talent. And Bragging rights for the East of course!!! Best of luck to both teams at the Finals.

[old hockey mom]

Phoenix was very impressive against the NorCal Mustangs. (I didn't see the other games.) They have great defense and didn't allow the Mustangs to take many shots. I believe in most of the games they had 1.5 times the shots on goal over their opponent.

[sh105]

I want to thank "old hockey mom" for posting the scores. I would have thought that for the Western Conference Finals the league would have posted scores and box scores. In this "information age" why does it take days if ever to see the results for these games. For this league to be taken seriously these sort of "easy" things should be a matter of fact.

[alex]

Nor Cal Mustangs were a great host. They brought out, in my estimation, at least 200 fans who were all very loud (when they scored, not so much when we did, haha). Mustangs were a fast, aggressive, physical team. It was a good series.

Games 3 and 4 against the Snipers were what I expected the series to be (both going to OT). We controlled Games 1 and 2 on Saturday night, 4-3 and 10-3, but they came out on fire on Sunday for Games 3 and 4. Game 3 was a great goaltending battle between Snipers' Dustin Brown and our goalie Cody O'Reilly. Both goalies took upwards of 30 shots, Brown with the shutout, Cody just allowed one goal on a PJ Tallo breakaway.

Game 4 was another great game, so many chances. Brown is a sick goalie. Tommy Bruce and PJ Tallo played huge minutes for the Snipers. Josh Laricchia had a hat trick for us, including the game winner 11 seconds into OT.

[Dave Garland]

Congrats to Phoenix for beating us and heading the finals. Nice guys and a good team.

We couldn't quite recover after dropping the first two games. We were a bit worried going into the series of any letdowns after the big Thunder series and Phoenix came out hard and deserve the credit.

Their goalie played well throughout the series. Josh Larrichia is a great player for the Dragons.

Anyway, always tough losing but we the Snipers had a great season knocking off two major juggernauts and also having fun on and off the rink and that is what it is all about.

[old hockey mom]

"Nor Cal Mustangs were a great host. They brought out, in my estimation, at least 200 fans who were all very loud (when they scored, not so much when we did, haha). Mustangs were a fast, aggressive, physical team. It was a good series." Quote from Alex. (Sorry, I don't know how to use the official quote icon.)

There truly was standing room only for the crowds. I hope someone got a picture, as fans were lined up four and five deep around the glass.

I think it is great for our kids to be able to see this level of play. Several of our local PIHA players coach a travel team. More are refs that the kids see at the rink all the time, so it makes it lots of fun for the kids.

Thanks to everyone who made the trip and congratulations to the Dragons!

Also, I'm sure Alex could speak more to this, but people shouldn't be surprised about Phoenix having such a good team. Arizona has some very competitive youth programs including the Tour Outcasts, Mission AZ Stars and Excalibur.

[silverman56]

Good thing the west coast finals were packed, because I heard the rink in maryland was completely empty.

Also heard that there were no banners, nothing that would even let someone know that the conference finals were being held there, and there was not a trophy or a presentation afterwards. Teams shook hands and left.

I dont know about you, but I love the lack of media coverage and entertainment the league offers, while taking all of our money.

I'm curious if the teams will actually be paid this season?!?

...please gr8skate, give me a reason why the east coast finals were so awful.. im waiting for it you anti-bashing PIHA excuses..

[DCbullets14]

the crowd was pretty small in the east. Made of mostly the knights guys who came out to watch. It was a pretty disapointing turnout, considering how exciting the games were. I would agree that the league did a pretty poor job of advertising the event. Unfortunatly, it is unlikely that the turnout would have been much better if the league had done more advertising. In my opinion the small crowd was due to the lack of interest in roller hockey in maryland.

I know our guys were happy to host the event and would enjoy doing it again in the future but if the league is looking for a great turnout they may want to consider picking a new location.

[Dave Garland]

The crowd was only for Thunder/Snipers and Mustangs/Dragons. Then not much for the finals once the Mustangs were out.