With their 5-4 victory in Utah, the Victoria Salmon Kings will enter a New Year's eve game in Salt Lake City in sole possesion of third place in the ECHL National Conference. With their second character win in a row, and ninth consecutive victory, the Blanshard Street Crew is living up to expectations. They were ranked as the third best ECHL team in a preview by The Hockey News.

Early on, the Utah Grizzllies opended the scoring, but as they said on the Grizzlies post game netcast every time Utah scored, Victoria would halt any momentum change and respond fairly quickly with a goal. The conference goal scoring leaders both had two goals, Ryan Kinasweich now has 22 on the season, and the Salmon Kings captain Wes Goldie has brought his total up to 18.

Third and fourth top National Conference goal scorers are Ontario's Gary Hogeboom with 17 and Alaska's John Lammers with 15. Kinasewich leads the National Conference scoring race with 42 points, and is second overall in the ECHL. His teamate AJ Perry is next with 31, and Salmon Kings Chad Painchaud and Olivier Latendresse are tied for 3rd in the Conference. Each has 11 goals and 19 assists for 30 points. David Shantz was back in goal, and his ECHL numbers are sparkling. He has 9 wins, 2 losses and 3 overtime losses plus a GAA of 2.46 with a save percentage of 92.4%. Along with former Peninsula Panther Taylor Ellington, the former Peterbourough Pete goalie have been selected to play in the upcoming ECHL All Star game.

GREMLINS---Any one trying to access the live score page was out of luck during the game. It made for some lively chat on the between period fan chat with Jeff answering questions.

THREE STARS, NOT ALWAYS...Last night was a rarity, where you could say the three star selection was fair and made sense. Any objective observer checking game reports and summaries will soon note that all too often in the ECHL National Conference (and sadly this sometimes includes Victoria), picks are made that are obvious from a "homer" bias. How this can be corrected is a good question, as it goes to the heart of the legitamacy of such awards.

BE SAFE--have fun ringing in the new decade, but be safe, and if you do drink, please do not drive.