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No rest for Wallin on the road

The Red Deer Rebels had a day off Thursday, but Jesse Wallin and his assistant coaches couldn’t stay away from the rink.

The Red Deer Rebels had a day off Thursday, but Jesse Wallin and his assistant coaches couldn’t stay away from the rink.

The Red Deer head coach/vice-president of hockey operations took in an afternoon clash in Chilliwack, where the Bruins were taking on the Vancouver Giants.

It just so happens, of course, that the Rebels will conclude their six-game Western Conference road trip tonight in Chilliwack, and Wallin and his assistants weren’t going to miss a chance to pre-scout the Bruins.

“There are not many opportunities to scout teams when you’re on the road, so it worked out well for us,” said Wallin, when contacted during the first period of the Remembrance Day contest.

The Rebels battled back from a 2-0 deficit Wednesday night in Vancouver, only to fall 3-2 to the Giants in a shootout.

In contrast to his mood following Tuesday’s 2-0 win at Everett when Wallin expressed a hint of disappointment regarding the Rebels’ performance, the Red Deer bench boss was impressed with his charges Wednesday.

“I thought we played real well. We came out and really carried the play and we had some opportunities early in the game,” said Wallin, whose club outshot the Giants 14-5 in a scoreless opening frame.

After the Rebels killed off a two-man disadvantage that carried over into the second period, Wallin was confident his troops would regain momentum.

Instead . . .

“We did a great job on that kill, but it seemed to put us back on our heels. We kind of turned the puck over a bit for six or seven minutes after that and gave them a bit of momentum,” said Wallin. “But we settled in after that and played real well.”

The Giants broke the scoreless tie when Jordan Martinook notched his fourth of the season at 4:26 of the second stanza, and got a fluke goal early in the third period when Luke Fenske’s point shot deflected off the stick of Rebels defenceman Brad Deagle and past netminder Darcy Kuemper.

“But I really liked the way we fought back,” said Wallin, in reference to a power-play marker from Byron Froese at 11:42 and Daulton Siwak’s fifth marker of the season less than a minute later.

“It would have been easy to give in (down 2-0). We’d played the night before and it’s a tough building to play in. We stuck with it and continued to push and obviously the power play goal was huge. And then for Wacker to tie it up a minute later . . . all of a sudden it was a 2-2 game and we had some life and momentum again.

“The game could have gone either way. I was happy with our effort and the way we played. All in all we played a real good road game. Unfortunately we came out on the wrong end, but it’s something to build off going into (tonight).”

Rebels defenceman Justin Weller is listed as questionable for tonight’s game after leaving Wednesday’s match with a suspected concussion.

l Saskatoon’s Credit Union Place will be rocking tonight when the Blades take on the Portland Winter Hawks.

Rock star Gene Simmons, the former KISS bassist, and his actress wife Shannon Tweed will be in attendance, and along with the fact the Blades will don their denim-look jerseys to recognize the Professional Bull Riders (PBR) Canadian Finals coming to Saskatoon next week, ticket sales for the game were approaching 6,000 Thursday. The Blades are also expecting a significant walk-up crowd.

Simmons, in town with Tweed — who attended high school in Saskatoon — to film an episode of the couple’s reality show, Family Jewels, will dress in goaltender gear for a second-intermission shootout with three lucky fans.

Tweed has been asked to perform a ceremonial faceoff to start the game.

The denim-look jerseys, meanwhile, have created quite a fashion flap.

“Some people aren’t necessarily loving these things,” Blades staffer Michael Scissons said told Cory Wolfe of the Saskatoon StarPhoenix, “but we never went out to design the nicest jersey in the world. We went out to design an event-specific, fun jersey. We knew that it wasn’t going to rank in the top-10 nicest jerseys of all time.

“We like to do one or two (theme) jerseys a year and this one presented itself in the right time frame.”

Scissons insisted the reaction to the jean-jacket look has been mixed, although, as reported by Wolfe, ‘Sportsnet hockey analyst Nick Kypreos scoffed at the design during a panel discussion, and some Internet posters mocked it as “horrible”.’

“(Reaction) has been split,” said Scissons.

“Some people don’t like it and some people think it’s the best thing. If it does anything, it makes people smile. It’s created a lot of buzz about this game and hopefully it’s created a lot of buzz about the PBR finals as well.”

On the move: The Moose Jaw Warriors were busy Thursday, trading 20-year-old centre Brendan Rowinski to the Vancouver Giants and dealing defenceman Connor Cox, 18, to Saskatoon. The Warriors reduced their number of overage players to the league maximum of three by sending Rowinski, who had 30 goals and 61 points in 68 games last season and two goals and points in two games this fall, to Vancouver in exchange for a third-round bantam draft pick in 2011 and a sixth-round pick in 2012. Moose Jaw got a second-round pick in 2001 in return for Cox.