The Winter Hawks are in very good hands

The Winter Hawks are in very good hands
March 15th, 2009 by Dwight Jaynes | Filed under Hockey.

I realize this season hasn’t gone well on the ice for the Portland Winter Hawks, including last night’s game — which turned into an overtime loss to Seattle.

But more than 9,000 people crammed into Memorial Coliseum Saturday night as part of a tribute to the old Portland Buckaroos. (And by the way, if you don’t think the MC is out of date and ready for a wrecking ball, you should have been there. There’s no more uncomfortable arena in the country when more than 7,000 people show up there — uh, unless it’s PGE Park, which is also awful.)

Doug Piper and his staff with the Hawks did a sensational job of honoring so many Buckaroo heroes. Nobody under the age of about 50 probably understands what I’m talking about when the subject is the Bucks. But the thing is, before the Trail Blazers, these men were KINGS in Portland. They were as big as the Blazers.

The Winter Hawks were able to get a great many of them to the arena last night and the ceremony, the banquet prior to the game — all of it was first class, including having the current Hawks players treating the Buckaroos with the utmost respect.

The ex-Bucks I know who were there were so excited to get together for this reunion and it was obvious from the size of the crowd that fans were happy to see them again, too.

Well done, Hawks. This night was a big step toward making hockey important in Portland again.