Vancouver Giants Update -- A Message from Hayzer

Posted 6:04 PM ET | Comments 1

I received the following email from my old friend of thirty years, Vancouver Giants coach Don Hay, this morning in response to my passing along the congratulations of the HockeyBuzz chatters on the Giants' MC championship:

Hi Scoop,

Thanks for your support. Joey had been keeping me informed on the two of you emailing back and forth and to still have those old pictures brought back some old memories. My kids thought the pictures were priceless, and my son Darrell's team just won the ECHL vs Dayton so we should have a good party back in Kamloops this summer with two championships to enjoy.

It was good to see you a couple of years ago with Hitch [Ken Hitchcock]. It sounds like you have been very busy with a number of things, and that we [the Giants] had quite a following on the internet during the playoffs and the MC. It's always good to have new fans.

We will be heading up to Kamloops soon to spend the summer and enjoy time with our granddaughter. What are your plans for the summer? Do you go to the draft? Thanks again, all the best and enjoy your summer.

Don

Here was my earlier email to Hayzer:

Congratulations Hayzer!!!

As I'm sure Joey Kenward has been telling you over the past few weeks, myself and a number of other regular "chatters" on the website HockeyBuzz.com have been closely following the exploits of the Giants throughout the WHL playoffs and Memorial Cup and we all send you and the team our most sincere and enthusiastic congratulations on your great season, WHL playoff run, and most of all Memorial Cup championship! (HockeyBuzz.com, for which I an the trivia and history blogger, is now the most visited hockey site in the US with an average of 14,000,000 to 16,000,000 pages views per month -- or roughly a half-million per day.)

A group of us "chatters" from all over the US and Canada assembled in the chatroom every time the Giants played to listen together to Joey's magical call (via audio stream) of the action while commenting upon every play, cheering every goal, booing every penalty, and enjoying every win. Even when we were also watching and commenting on Stanley Cup games which we were also watching on television, it was the Giants games which were of most importance to us! (I have also been following the playoff run of Darrell's Idaho Steelheads as that teams' young broadcaster, Joe O'Donnell is a protege of mine, I sent Joe the 1976-77 Firebirds' publicity picture of you which Joe tells me he had never seen before and found to be most interesting!)

Again, Hayzer, let me tell you how very much we all enjoyed following the Giants this Spring, and you can be sure that I will be watching the graduates of the team who turn pro with great interest in the years to come!

All the best, Hayzer, and have a great summer!!

Scoop