G Carter Hart stopped 29 shots on Thursday night, leading the visiting Everett Silvertips 
to a 3-1 victory over the Tri-City Americans. . . . The result left the Silvertips with a 3-1 lead in the WHL’s best-of-seven Western Conference final, with Game 5 scheduled for Everett tonight (Saturday). . . . The Silvertips took a 2-0 second-period lead on goals from F Riley Sutter (6) and F Reece Vitelli (4), and never looked back. . . . Vitelli, who scored twice in 70 regular-season games, has four goals in 14 playoff games. . . . F Matt Fonteyne (6) added an empty-netter for the winners, after F Riley Sawchuk (2) had scored for the home side. . . . Everett F Martin Fasko-Rudas left the game with an undisclosed injury. His status for Game 5 isn’t likely to be known much before tonight’s pregame warmup. . . . The announced attendance was 3,537, representing the Americans’ largest crowd in six home playoff games. The Americans’ average announced attendance in these playoffs is 3,056 in the 6,000-seat Toyota Center. . . . During the regular season, the Americans’ average, according to announced attendance figures, was 3,649.
The WHL’s Eastern Conference final, with the Swift Current Broncos and Lethbridge Hurricanes tied 2-2, is scheduled to resume tonight (Saturday) in Swift Current.
Things seem to be heating up, too, especially off the ice.
Following Game 4 of the Eastern Conference final, won 5-1 by the host Hurricanes on Wednesday, Shawn Mullin, the radio voice of the Broncos, used his Twitter account to take Lethbridge hockey fans to task.
Dylan Purcell, a former Lethbridge Herald sports writer, chimed in with a tweet of his own.
Estephan, 20, played 288 regular-season games with the Hurricanes and was the team captain when he and G Stuart Skinner were traded to the Broncos in January.
Lethbridge fans responded Wednesday by booing Estephan when he was in possession of the puck. Of course, they also verbally abused Skinner, but that pretty much comes with the territory for a visiting team’s goaltender, doesn’t it?
Skinner responded by saying: “I’m fine with it. I like when fans get on me, but I would have expected a little bit more respect for the fans. Especially after everything me and Giorgio did for them.
“It kind of shows you the type of respect they have for us and how fast things can change. I’m fine with it . . . I saw it coming a long (time) ago.
“I want to beat the fans now. I’m ready to go.”
Meanwhile, in advance of Game 5, the Broncos announced a crackdown on “abusive or violent behaviour” at their home games. It seems the rowdies have been in evidence there, too.
In a news release, Trent McLeary, the organization’s acting chairman, stated that the 
team “would like to ensure all of our fans that we are aware of incidents that have occurred at a couple of games in the first two rounds of playoffs involving visiting fans from Regina and Moose Jaw.
“Management from the hockey club has discussed behavioural issues with a number of individuals involved in incidents and made them aware there is zero tolerance for this behaviour in the future. All fans should be aware that abusive or violent behaviour will result in removal from the facility by security personnel and may be subject to review by the RCMP. . . .
“There have also been changes made to the seating arrangements for visiting fans to ensure everyone is having a safe and fun time at our events. We encourage our fans to hold themselves and others to a high standard that reflects appropriately on the hockey club and our community.”
The SJHL-champion Nipawin Hawks, led by three goals and an assist from F Brandan Arnold, downed the host Steinbach Pistons, 4-3, on Friday night in Game 1 of the ANAVET Cup. The best-of-seven series features the SJHL and MJHL champions against each other with the winner getting a berth in the Royal Bank Cup tournament at Prospera Place in Chilliwack, B.C., May 12-20. . . . Arnold snapped a 3-3 tie with his third goal at 18:56 of the third period. . . . They’ll play Game 2 tonight (Saturday) in Steinbach. . . . Arnold, 21, is from Dodsland, Sask. He has played 80 WHL games over three seasons, all with the Swift Current Broncos, recording five goals and five assists. . . . The Hawks got 29 saves from G Declan Hobbs.
In Wenatchee, Wash., F A.J. Vanderbeck scored at 6:17 of OT to give the BCHL-champion Wild a 3-2 victory over the AJHL-champion Spruce Grove Saints in Game 1 of the best-of-seven series for the Doyle Cup. . . . They’ll play Game 2 in Wenatchee tonight (Saturday). . . . Vanderbeck, 20, is from Monument, Colo. In 20 playoff games, he put up 13 goals and 15 assists. . . . F Lukas Svejkovsky gave the Wild a 2-1 lead at 12:51 of the third period. . . . Spruce Grove D Brad Forrest tied it at 14:22. . . . The announced attendance was 2,486.
Jeff Tambellini is the new general manager and head coach of the BCHL’s Trail Smoke 
Eaters. He replaces Cam Keith, who was fired on April 9 after two seasons on the job and despite having gotten the Smokies into the Interior Division final, where they lost in five games to the eventual-champion Wenatchee Wild. . . . From Port Moody, B.C., Tambellini played two seasons with the BCHL’s Chilliwack Chiefs, during which he was named junior A player of the year in 2001-02. He played at the U of Michigan for three seasons before going on to a pro career that included 242 NHL games and finished in Europe. . . . He spent this season, his first after retiring as a player, as an assistant coach at the U of Michigan. . . . Tambellini’s father, Steve, is from Trail, while Steve’s father, Addie, played for the 1960-61 Smoke Eaters, the last amateur team from Canada to win the IIHF world championship.
Jay Woodcroft is the new head coach of the Bakersfield Condors, the AHL affiliate of the NHL’s Edmonton Oilers. Woodcroft takes over from Gerry Fleming who, along with assistant coach Tony Borgford, were fired. . . . Woodcroft, 41, spent the previous three seasons as an assistant coach with the Oilers, under head coach Todd McLellan. The two of them also were together for three seasons with the Detroit Red Wings and seven with the San Jose Sharks. . . . This season, the Condors finished 31-27-9-1. They were seventh in the eight-team Pacific Division and missed the playoffs. . . . The Oilers also dumped assistant coaches Ian Herbers and Jim Johnson. . . . Herbers just completed a three-year sabbatical from the U of Alberta Golden Bears and will be returning to that post. Serge Lajoie, who was the head coach in Herberrs’ absence, has been interviewed by the Saskatoon Blades, who are looking for a head coach to replace the fired Dean Brockman. . . . With Herbers behind the bench, the Golden Bears won the Canadian university championship in 2014 and 2015. Lajoie just led the Golden Bears to the 2018 title.
Dominique Ducharme, the head coach of Canada’s national junior team at each of the past two World Junior Championships, has been signed as an assistant coach by the NHL’s Montreal Canadiens. . . . A veteran QMJHL coach, Ducharme spent the past two seasons as GM/head coach of the Drummondville Voltigeurs. Prior to that, he was the head coach of the Halifax Mooseheads for five seasons. . . . The Canadiens also announced that assistant coaches Jean-Jacques Daigneault and Dan Lacroix won’t return, while goaltender coach Stephane Waite has signed a new contract.
F Mike Aviani (Spokane, 2009-14) signed a one-year contract extension with Medveščak Zagreb (Croatia, Erste Bank Liga). A dual Croatian-Canadian citizen, he had 10 goals and 14 assists in 50 games. . . .
F Andrew Clark (Brandon, 2005-09) signed a one-year contract extension with Innsbruck (Austria, Erste Bank Liga). In 54 games, he had 24 goals and 35 assists. He led his team in scoring and was sixth in the league’s scoring race. . . .
F Ryan Hollweg (Medicine Hat, 1999-2004) signed a one-year contract extension with Plzeň (Czech Republic, Extraliga). In 41 games, he had two goals and two assists. Next season will be his seventh with Plzeň. . . .
D Troy Rutkowski (Portland, 2008-13) signed a one-year contract with the Linz Black Wings (Austria, Erste Bank Liga). This season, with Sparta Sarpsborg (Norway, GET-Ligaen), he had 20 goals and 27 assists in 45 games. He led his team in goals, led the league in goals and points by a defenceman, and was named to the league’s all-star team. . . .
D Kristian Khenkel (Lethbridge, 2013-14) signed a one-year contract extension with Dinamo Minsk (Belarus, KHL). In 55 games, he had two goals and three assists. . . .
F Greg Scott (Seattle, 2005-09) signed a one-year contract extension with CSKA Moscow (Russia, KHL). An alternate captain, he had six goals and seven assists in 36 games.
beat the Estevan Bruins, 2-1, in Game of the SJHL final for the Canalta Cup. . . . The Hawks last won the SJHL title in 1990. . . . D Carter Doerksen, the team captain, had given Nipawin a 1-0 lead with his first goal of these playoffs, at 14:47 of the first period. . . . F Jake Fletcher pulled Estevan even with his 11th goal, at 12:53 of the second period. . . . McDougall’s sixth goal, on a PP, stood up as the winner. . . . McDougall also had an assist on Doerksen’s goal. . . . Nipawin G Declan Hobbs stopped 26 shots, six fewer than Estevan’s Bo Didur. . . . The Hawks will meet the MJHL-champion Steinbach Pistons for the ANAVET Cup, with that best-of-seven series opening with games in Steinbach on Friday and Saturday nights.
Eastern Conference final. . . . The Broncos hold a 2-1 edge in the series, with Game 4 in Lethbridge tonight. . . . Morrison broke a 1-1 tie with a PP goal at 17:59 of the second period. . . . He upped the lead to 4-1 at 11:35 of the third period and completed the hat trick with an empty-net goal at 16:12. . . . F Dylan Cozens added two goals for Lethbridge. . . . Morrison leads all playoff scorers with 34 points, five more than F Michael Rasmussen of the Tri-City Americans. . . . With 15 goals, Morrison trails only Tri-City’s Morgan Geekie (16). Morrison’s 19 assists are second only to F Aleksi Heponiemi of the Broncos, who has 20. . . . With 15 goals, Morrison now holds the Hurricanes’ record for one playoff year. He broke the record (14) that had been held since 1990 by F Kelly Ens. . . . With 34 points, Morrison is three shy of the club record held by F Wes Walz, who put up 37 points in 1990. . . . At 7-0, Lethbridge is the only team still unbeaten on home ice. . . . The Broncos were without D Artyom Minulin, who left Game 1 with an undisclosed injury, and F Glenn Gawdin, who was injured in Game 2. . . . These teams will play Game 5 in Swift Current on Saturday night. . . . The Everett Silvertips hold a 2-1 edge over the Tri-City Americans in the Western Conference final. That series will continue in Kennewick, Wash., on Thursday night.
manager, told Cleve Dheensaw of the Victoria Times Colonist late last week.
an announced crowd of 3,268 in Game 3 of the WHL’s best-of-seven Western Conference final. . . . Everett leads the series, 2-1. . . . The visitors got three goals from F Patrick Bajkov, who snapped the 4-4 tie at 6:54 of the third period, then made it 6-4 at 9:21. . . . The Americans had tied the score 4-4 on third-period goals from F Isaac Johnson, at 0:47, and F Michael Rasmussen, at 1:45. . . . Tri-City scored its first two goals via the PP and now is 17-33 with the man advantage through 11 playoff games. . . . Things got a bit heated early in the third period with the head coaches — Everett’s Dennis Williams and Tri-City’s Mike Williamson — exchanging greetings at the benches. . . . The series won’t resume until Thursday because Kennewick’s Toyota Center is playing host to Dirty Dancing: The Classic Story Onstage on Wednesday night. . . . 
Canalta Cup. The best-of-seven series is 3-3 and will be decided Tuesday night in Nipawin. Game time is 7:30 p.m. . . . That, considering all that has transpired over the past two-plus weeks, is the only way this could end, isn’t it? . . . F Jake Fletcher, the Bruins’ captain, had a goal, his 10th of the playoffs, and two assists. Fletcher has 20 points, one behind playoff co-leaders Kaelan Holt of Estevan, who is the son of former Swift Current Broncos star Todd Holt, and Nipawin’s Brandan Arnold. Kaelan Holt had two assists on Sunday. . . . Rob Vanstone of the Regina Leader-Post was in Estevan and did up this piece 
Prospera Place, officially is in the bidding to play host to the 2020 Memorial Cup.
The Kamloops Blazers announced on Nov. 9 that they will be in the chase, while the Victoria Royals also are expected to bid.
skating to a 3-2 victory over the Lethbridge Hurricanes, and the Everett Silvertips getting past the visiting Tri-City Americans, also 3-2. . . . Game 2 in each series will be played in the same venue tonight. . . . When this season began, who had those four teams in the conference finals? . . . In Swift Current, G Stuart Skinner stopped 38 shots and F Aleksi Heponiemi broke a 2-2 tie at 11:11 of the third period. In 29 career playoff games, he has one goal and 27 assists. . . . Artyom Minulin didn’t finish the game for the Broncos, but head coach Manny Viveiros told Shawn Mullin, the team’s radio voice, that the third-year Russian defenceman has “a touch of the flu.” . . . In Everett, G Carter Hart stopped 24 shots and F Garrett Pilon scored twice for the Silvertips. . . . F Morgan Geekie had one of the Americans’ goals, meaning he has at least one goal in each of the club’s nine playoff games this season. Tri-City went into the game with an 8-0 record in these playoffs. . . . Everett now has won five straight games.
expire. He took a three-year sabbatical from the U of Alberta Golden Bears — he had been their head coach — to sign with the Oilers. Jim Matheson of the Edmonton Journal reports right here that Herbers, should his deal with the Oilers not be renewed, could be headed back to the Golden Bears. . . . Matheson also reports that Serge Lajoie, who replaced Herbers at the U of A, “has interviewed for the vacant (head-coaching) job with the WHL’s Saskatoon Blades, which sounds like he’s being proactive (in case) Herbers moves back to the Bears.” . . . The Blades are looking for a head coach after firing Dean Brockman at the end of the regular season.
won the opener, 5-2, in Nipawin on Saturday night. . . . Last night, F Adam Beckman led the Hawks with two goals, his first two of the playoffs. Beckman, a fifth-round selection by the Spokane Chiefs in the WHL’s 2016 bantam draft, played this season for the midget AAA Battlefords Stars. . . . Beckman has played three playoff games with the Hawks. He had one goal and one assist in the only regular-season game he played with Nipawin. . . . The Hawks also got two goals from F Logan Casavant, who has six in the playoffs. . . . F Arthur Miller had Estevan’s lone goal, his seventh. . . . The teams combined to take 24 minors. . . . Nipawin got 23 saves from G Declan Hobbs, while Estevan’s Bo Didur stopped 34 shots. . . . They’ll play the next two games in Estevan on Tuesday and Wednesday nights, with a fifth game back in Nipawin on Friday night.
the Estevan Bruins visiting the Hawks in Nipawin.
points in three straight games (2-0-1). . . . The Ice (18-18-3) have points in each of its previous seven games (5-0-2). . . . Kootenay is 0-1-1 to being a stretch of five games in six nights. The Ice will be in Swift Current tonight. . . . Lethbridge is third in the Central Division, two points behind Kootenay, which is five points back of Medicine Hat. . . . Skinner was back in goal after not having played since Dec. 16. He became ill after the Christmas break. He posted his fourth shutout this season and the 10th of his career. He now holds the franchise’s career record with one more than Logan Koopmans (1999-2004). . . . It may have been key that the Hurricanes scored in the last minute of each of the first two periods. . . . F Jordy Bellerive opened the scoring, on a PP, with five seconds left in the first period. . . . F Giorgio Estephan, who also had three assists, scored his 17th goal, on a PP, at 8:43 of the second period. . . . F Jadon Joseph (4) made it 3-0 at 19:08. . . . The home side put it away with four third-period goals, from Bellerive (22), at 3:43; F Taylor Ross (10), at 4:36; F Zachary Cox (1), at 5:42; and F Lane Zablocki (11), at 10:50. . . . Lethbridge got two assists from each of D Calen Addison, F Dylan Cozens and D Igor Merezhko, with Zablocki and Joseph adding one each. . . . Lethbridge was 2-4 on the PP; Kootenay was 0-4. . . . G Duncan McGovern stopped 34 shots for the Ice, which was outshot 34-13 over the final two periods. . . . D Nolan Jones, 16, a second-round pick in the 2016 bantam draft, was in Lethbridge’s lineup, as was D Alex Cotton, 16, who was a fifth-round pick in that draft. Jones, who was pointless in three games last season, is from Moose Jaw and has four goals and 11 assists in 28 games with the midget AAA Moose Jaw Generals. Cotton, who made his WHL debut, is from Langley, B.C. He has four goals and 32 assists in 24 games with the CSSHL’s Yale Hockey Academy prep team. . . . F Holden Kodak, 16, who is from Cloverdale, B.C., made his WHL debut with the Ice. An 11th-round selection by the Portland Winterhawks in the 2016 bantam draft, he was placed on Kootenay’s protected list in October and signed on Dec. 19. Kodak has been playing with the Yale Hockey Academy’s prep team in the CSSHL. He has 60 points, 36 of them goals, in 26 games. . . . Announced attendance: 2,973.
TAKING NOTE 