T-birds honor Jackson, rout hapless Portland

Seattle Thunderbirds defenseman Scott Jackson was honored for his reliability and longevity at KeyArena on Saturday night and celebrated by scoring a key goal in a 6-2 Western Hockey League victory over the Portland Winter Hawks.

Jackson, from Salmon Arm, B.C., scored an unassisted marker at 3:07 of the second period to snap a 1-1 tie. It was the 316th game of Jackson's career, and he ranks fifth on the all-time list of games played in team history.

A crowd of 8,369 was on hand to see videos of several former Seattle players congratulating Jackson on his milestone. Jackson needs two more games to move into third on the all-time list.

"It was nice," Jackson said after scoring his fifth goal of the season and 23rd of his career. "Obviously I haven't had as many goals as I'd have liked. It was a special night. ... That was a nice way to top it off."

The T-birds won for the 10th consecutive time this season over Portland, which dropped its 17th consecutive game.

Seattle (35-20-5-2) won for the 16th time in its past 20 games and moved three points ahead of Kelowna for fourth place in the Western Conference standings, the last spot that earns home-ice advantage in the first round of the playoffs.

That's important for the T-birds, 23-5-3-2 at KeyArena this season.

Bud Holloway and Greg Scott each scored his 32nd goal of the season for Seattle as six Thunderbirds scored goals in the game. Others to find the net were Jan Eberle, Prab Rai and Jim O'Brien.

"We attacked pretty well and didn't give up too much," Seattle coach Rob Sumner said. "It was a nice honor for Jackson. He's been such a quality guy for our organization for such a long time that it was nice for him to score."

Seattle fired 57 shots at Portland goaltender Kurtis Mucha, who finished with 51 saves and still lost for the 33rd time this season.

Portland (9-52-1-1) took an early lead when Taylor Peters scored the first goal of his WHL career at 9:34 of the first period. Eberle answered for Seattle less than two minutes later and the T-birds took control of the game with three unanswered goals in the second period.

THUNDERBIRDS 6, WINTER HAWKS 2

Portland	1 0 1 -- 2
Seattle	1 3 2 -- 6

First -- 1. Portland, Peters 1 (Swystun, Ponich) 9:34. 2. Seattle, Eberle 6 (McKenzie, Acolatse) 11:32 (pp). Second -- 3. Seattle, Jackson 6 3:07. 4. Seattle, O'Brien 18 (Richard, Rai) 4:44. 5. Seattle, Rai 15 (O'Brien, Richard) 19:05. Third -- 6. Seattle, Scott 32 (Nielsen) 10:23 (sh). 7. Portland, Walker 7 (King) 14:14. 8. Seattle, Holloway 32 17:42. A -- 8,369.