Besides Kinasewich, the Grizzlies also recently added ECHL veteran Bo Cheesman to their playoff roster. Cheesman played in Alaska last year and knows all about the oversize ice sheet at Sullivan Arena.

"It's a lot to do with managing that open ice," he said of being successful in Alaska. "It's a big ice sheet. It's the only Olympic ice sheet. For me looking at Alaska's point of view last year, we were playing a lot of teams that found themselves trying to play (an) NHL-style rink game in an Olympic rink where you have to skate that much further to finish a check or you have to skate that much further to back-check."

For his part, Colley pointed out it would be huge for the Grizzlies to get off to a quick start in Game 1 Friday.

"A quick goal would be really nice to put some doubt into everyone in that building," he said. "We're going in with confidence, but we'd just like to go out to a quick start, get up one or two. If that doesn't happen, we'd just like to weather their storm a little bit because they're gonna be pumped up with their fans in the situation that we're in."

E-mail: drasmussen@desnews.com