The San Diego Gulls faced off their latest American Hockey League season on Oct. 18 with a game against the Coachella Valley Firebirds at Pechanga Arena.
On Oct. 16, Gulls players and coaches gathered at practice at the arena to celebrate Hockey Hall of Famer Willie O’Ree’s 89th birthday. The festive event took place one day after O’Ree actually reached yet another milestone in his long and eventful life.
O’Ree, who was born on Oct. 15, 1935, became the first black hockey player to play in the NHL when he broke the black color barrier with the Boston Bruins on Jan. 18, 1958.
A longtime La Mesa resident, O’Ree subsequently played for the Gulls in the Western Hockey League from 1967-1974 and an additional season with the San Diego Hawks in the Pacific Hockey League in 1978-79 before finally hanging up his skates as a professional.
The Gulls sang happy birthday and gifted O’Ree a fedora, a signature look of the hockey pioneer. A small reception followed the locker room visit that was attended by O’Ree’s friends and family as well as representatives of the NHL.
A short happy birthday video of current and former NHL players was played for O’Ree, who was in attendance for the home opener.
O’Ree said he was “so overwhelmed” by the surprise party. Originally, he had gone to Pachanga Arena to watch the Gulls’ morning practice.
O’Ree was the celebrated guest in the locker room, telling hockey stories to all those who would listen. Applause broke out several times.
O’Ree was presented with a replica recognition plaque that will be placed in Pechanga Arena honoring him as the NHL’s first Black player and his time with the WHL Gulls.
O’Ree played 45 games for the Bruins over two seasons (1957-58 and 1960-61), collecting 14 NHL points (four goals, 10 assists) despite being legally blind in one eye from a hockey injury sustained while playing junior hockey.
Prior to playing for the original Gulls, he started his long WHL career with the Los Angeles Blades. In 785 games for the two Southern California teams, he logged 639 points (328 goals, 311 assists).
He was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in the Builders category in 2018 and remains active in the NHL’s Hockey is for Everyone initiative that has introduced the sport to more than 130,000 youths though 39 grassroots hockey programs he helped establish.
O’Ree was featured on the arena video board during the home opener and received a standing ovation from the 9,267 in attendance.
He is a regular attendee at Gulls home games despite his many on-going duties with the NHL diversity programs.
Taking flight
The Gulls — off to a 2-7 start following Saturday’s 3-1 loss to the visiting Abbotsford Canucks, had to give everyone in the arena a big emotional lift following Sunday’s come-from-behind 6-4 win over the same Canucks team.
The Gulls trailed twice by three goals — 3-0 and 4-1 — before erupting for the game’s finals five goals in a span of 9:20 to lay claim to their first home ice win of the season.
Five different players got in on the torrid comeback: Rodwin Dionicio made it 4-2 at 10:08, team captain Ryan Carpenter inched the score closer to 4-3 with a power play goal at 12:32, Roland McKeown tied the game 4-4 at 13:45, Sam Colangelo put the hosts ahead 5-4 at 16:30 and Nikita Nesterenko finished the scoring with an empty net goal at 19:28.
Colangelo (game-winner) earned first star of the game honors while Jansen Harkins was the second star with five assists and Dionicio was the third star with a goal and assist.
The Gulls scored on five of their 11 shots in the third period to finish with a 33-27 edge in the game.
Coulson Pitre and Tristan Luneau both collected two assists while goaltender Calle Clang stopped all five shots he faced in relief duty to backstop the Gulls to the win.
Dionicio, Carpenter and McKeown are all newcomers to San Diego this season while Colangelo and Nesterenko are both in their second seasons. Nesterenko led Gulls rookies in scoring last season with 37 points in 70 games.
Harkins, a second-round draft pick (47th overall) by the NHL Winnipeg Jets in 2015, tops the Gulls in scoring with 13 points (three goals, 10 assists).
Colangelo, a second-round draft pick (36th overall) by the NHL parent Anaheim Ducks in 2020, ranks second with nine points (six goals, three assists).
Ten games into the season, 3-7 sounds much better than 2-8.
Weekend rewind
After returning from a four-game road trip to Western Canada with stops in Abbotsford, British Columbia, and Calgary, Alberta, the Gulls faced off a two-game weekend series at Pechanga Arena San Diego against — guess who? — Abbotsford.
The Gulls split their two games in the BC province, dropping the first game 3-1 and winning the rematch 4-1. The weekend set in San Diego amounted to a playoff-style series of four games in 10 days. Actually, both teams had been quite busy of late with six games overall in their last 10 days.
The teams seemed similarly matched through the first period of Saturday’s series opener with nine shots apiece. The Canucks notched the period’s only goal as John Stevens pushed the puck past San Diego starter Calle Clang at 9:00, assisted by Atu Räty and Jonathan Lekkerimäki.
Both teams had two power play opportunities and neither team managed to score.
The Canadian visitors scored one goal in each of the next two periods — actually one goal in each period as it turned out.
Räty scored shorthanded at 2:10 of the second period, assisted by Stevens. Räty then finished scoring with an empty-net goal at 17:21, once again assisted by Stevens.
The Gulls spoiled Abbotsford goaltender Jiri Patera’s shutout bit on a nicely-played backhand shot by Roland McKeown at 19:07, assisted by team captain Ryan Carpenter.
The Canucks finished with a narrow 28-27 edge in shots in the game, seen by 6,919 fans. Patera earned first star of the game honors with 26 saves on 27 shots for Abbotsford while Räty was the second star with two goals and one assist and Stevens the third star with one goal and two assists.
Patera deserved his top star billing with several point-blank saves on San Diego sharp-shooters.
The rematch the next day started off pretty much how the previous encounter ended — with a sizable Abbotsford lead. The Canucks led 2-0 after the first period on a power play goal by Lekkerimäki at 15:38 and an even-strength goal by the same at 17:50. Räty drew an assist on both goals.
The visitors made it 3-0 at 1:12 of the second period as Max Sasson tallied off an assist by Stevens. Nesterenko got one back for the home side at 9:53, assisted by Harkins and Dionicio. But the Canucks regained their three-goal lead just 47 seconds into the third period as Cole McWard scored his first goal of the season, set up by Sasson.
The 4-1 lead chased Gulls starter Oskar Dansk from the game and installed Clang between the pipes for what turned out to be a very memorable rest of the game. Dansk stopped 18 of 22 shots. Patera made 22 saves on 27 shots in absorbing the loss.
The five-goal third period matched the Gulls’ highest output in the third period in team history (last set Nov. 13, 2019 against San Jose).
Harkins’ five assists set a new club record.
“I’m just happy for the guys,” San Diego bench boss Matt McIlvane said. “We’ve been putting in good efforts in probably three of our last four games, we’re really proud of the product and then finding ways to not win games. From today, for the guys to have this feeling after the game, it’s a big deal for them.
“I just knew that we needed a little hope, and I felt like in the moment that’s the only change that could happen outside of maybe shuffling some lines that just shows the guys we’re still fighting. It’s tough for Oscar, but Calle jumped in and closed the door when he needed him and you know, the guys caught fire.
“We have a proud group and we’ve seen this multiple times this year where we’re down, we come back and we don’t always come all the way back, but we know we’ve got this resiliency in us and those guys, they led the way, and it was fun. There was a lot of momentum on our side.
“I’m proud of them. We have to store this one in our memory bank because it won’t be the only time we’re down this season, but to know that it’s worth it to keep fighting and to stay connected mentally to what we’re trying to do. We’ve got this in us and so now this is our expectation.
“Just a lot of belief,” Harkins said. “You know, we’re still early in the year but we’ve come back quite a few times now. I think doing it before already obviously helps, and then just try to get one and go from there, obviously. Once we got one it started clicking for us.
“Just sticking with it, I don’t think we changed too much. We had a really good last 10 minutes of the second period. I think just a lot of momentum going into the break there, and we came out hard and we kind of just started dropping for us. We couldn’t buy a goal the first five periods, for whatever reason, but the sixth, it just happened for us. Just sticking with it.”
“We were really patient and just letting the game come to us, for sure,” added Dionicio, who picked up his first career AHL goal in the game. “We know what we got, and we were letting the game come to us. We did a pretty (good) job. And, just, observing the rush and trying to play really quick. I think it went pretty well.
The San Diego newcomer said the energy in the building from the 5,223 in attendance began to build with each goal in the comeback.
“Me being new here, the crowd is unreal here,” Dionico said. “We started with one goal, and they just get louder and louder every time, and we just fed off of it. I mean, the boys loved it and we just played with the crowd in our bag, we played our best and we got that comeback. We’re just trying to get momentum out of this game and just keep playing our way.
“It feels great to get our first win in front of our home crowd too. We just have to keep feeding on it. Play with momentum, we know what we got, we just have to play hard and be here every day.”
The Gulls travel to Arizona this weekend for a pair of games in Tucson (Saturday at 6 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m.) against the Roadrunners, the AHL affiliate of the recently relocated Utah Hockey Club (formerly Arizona Coyotes). The Gulls play at San Jose on Wednesday, Nov. 13, before returning to host the Bakersfield Condors on Saturday, Nov. 16, to start a five-game homestand that also includes games against the Calgary Wranglers (Nov. 20), Coachella Valley Firebirds (Nov. 22), Ontario Reign (Nov. 23) and Tucson (Nov. 30).
College hockey:
Aztecs miss opportunities, fall to Canisius University
It’s definitely been some kind of journey for the San Diego State University men’s ice hockey team in both their first season in Western Collegiate Hockey League play and under first-year head coach Dean Wilson.
The Aztecs are 0-8 in WCHL play with two-game series setbacks to the University of Arizona, University of Utah, Grand Canyon University and Colorado State University.
As the WCHL’s new kids on the block, they obviously have to take their lumps and pay their dues as they climb up the hockey totem pole. The WCHL is also one of the ACHA M1 division’s strongest leagues. In the latest rankings, UNLV is No. 5, Utah is No. 7, Oklahoma is No. 8, Grand Canyon University is No. 14, Arizona is No. 17, Arizona State University is No. 20 and the University of Colorado is No. 23.
There are 73 teams in the ACHA M1 tier this season and SDSU ranks No. 58, and there’s a reason for that.
Take last weekend’s home contests against No. 31 Canisius University. The New York visitors crawled back from deficits in both games to sweep the hosts in rather unkind fashion.
The Griffins rallied from 2-1 and 3-2 deficits in the series opener, played Friday at Poway Ice, to win 4-3 in a shootout.
The Aztecs battled back from 1-0 and 2-1 early deficits to take a 4-2 lead in the middle portion of the series rematch, played Saturday at the Kroc Center Ice Arena, before stumbling in the third period to fall 6-4 on the strength of four unanswered goals.
The Griffins improved to 10-1 on the season while the Aztecs dropped to 4-9-0-0-1 (four wins, nine losses, one shootout loss).
Wilson had difficulty finding the right words to describe his team’s meltdown in both games.
“Undisciplined,” he said. “That’s the first word that comes to mind. Disappointing is another. We had the lead in both games. We’ve got to learn how to close out games.”
The Griffins scored the opening goals in both games. Jagger North opened scoring in the Friday game at 2:49 with his fifth goal of the season before SDSU’s Sean Yeo (assisted by Marcus Kim and Sean Devaney) tied it at 11:09. The goal was Yeo’s first of the season. Canisius held a 10-8 edge in shots through the opening 20 minutes.
The teams traded goals in the second period for a 2-2 standoff through 40 minutes. The Aztecs took a 2-1 lead on Luke Desmarais’ third goal of the season at 4:43. Assists went to Nolan Conrad and Drew Gunderson. The New Yorkers tied it at 16:39 on Dan Zaccarine’s third tally of the season, assisted by Jonah Ahrens and Kobe Depedrina. The points were the second of the game for both Ahrens and Depedrina. The teams combined for 40 shots in the middle stanza — 21 for Canisius and 19 for SDSU.
The Aztecs inched ahead, 3-2, on Mason Brown’s third goal of the season at 4:31, assisted by Desmarais. The one-goal lead held up until 12;21 of the period when Brandon Lukomsski netted his second goal of the season to knot the teams into a 3-3 deadlock.
A scoreless three-on-three overtime followed with SDSU holding a 4-1 edge in shots but no further goals between the teams.
Canisius goaltender Christian Schwartz stopped Brown, Kim and Desmarais in the ensuing shootout while Aztec netminder Brady Hsiao stopped Ahrens before North scored the game-winner in the tiebreaker.
Final shots favored the Griffins 45-41. Schwartz (3-0-0 on the season) tallied 38 saves on 41 shots while Hsiao made 41 saves on 44 shots.
The teams combined for 135 penalty minutes in the Saturday rematch, with the Aztecs logging 75 PIM. There were four game misconduct penalties, one game disqualification (major contact/hit to head) and bench game misconducts to both coaches.
North put the Griffins ahead, 1-0, in the second game off feeds from Ahrens and Ben Naimool at 6:09 on the power play. Desmarais notched his fourth goal of the season at 15:50, with assists going to Brandon Grant and Brown, as the Aztecs compiled at 15-12 edge in shots.
The second period was much more free-wheeling with 29 shots between the teams (15-14 in favor of the hosts), four goals and eight penalties (with four game misconducts and two 10-minute misconducts). Wilson departed the SDSU bench as part of the decisions.
Canisius took a 2-1 lead at 2:58 to start the period courtesy of Matthew Bowen (assisted by Liam Wicks and Josh Okulewicz). Then things got very interesting.
The Aztecs ripped off three consecutive goals to take a seemingly safe 4-2 lead. Gavin O’Bryan scored at 9:21 on the power play, assisted by Brown and Lucas Bellig, to tie the game at two-all. The hosts took a 3-2 lead at 13:52 on another power play goal, this time from team scoring-leader Cameron Ferraz. Bellig and Grant received credit for the helpers. SDSU went ahead by two goals, 4-2, on the third power play goal of the period, this time courtesy of Brown, assisted by Devaney and Patrick Fast. The Aztecs held a 30-26 edge in shots through two periods.
But the Red and Black could not hold onto the momentum. The Griffins piled up a 22-6 advantage in shots in the third period, scoring four unanswered goals of their own to spirit away the victory and the series sweep.
Quinn Collins started off the goal rush with his first goal of the season at 8:06 to draw the visitors to within 4-3 on the scoreboard. Tyler Hansen and North assisted. Ahrens tied the game at 9:16 with a rapid-fire power play goal, assisted by North. The goals kept coming as Matthew Jurkowski pushed Canisius ahead, 5-4, at 17:07 with another power play goal. Connor Schwartz received the lone assist. Jurkowski finished things off with an empty net goal at 19:56. The Canisius coach received a game misconduct at 7:53.
The Griffins out-shot the Aztecs 48-36. Winning goaltender Samuel Cureo (3-0-0 on the season) made 32 saves on 36 shots while SDSU’s Liam Dee stopped 42 of 47 shots.
“We talked about it (leading) after the second period,” Wilson said. “We’re up by two goals, 4-2, and we needed to close it down. We have to learn to play three periods. They stole two games from us.”
“Both these games got away from us,” Ferraz said. “We had leads in both games. It’s something to learn from. It’s not going to happen again.”
SDSU returns to home ice for a Nov. 15-16 series against Arizona State and a Nov. 22-23 series against GCU. The Aztecs host Utah Dec 6-7.
In the crease
Photos by Phillip Brents
