Friday night is just right for hockey

Personally, I’ve always liked the Friday night games when I was involved with the Midget team. It always brings out biggest crowds and the boys usually play their best. Although that could be argued. Sometimes the boys are a little rambunctious and see the need to showoff their  toughness to the girlfriends, then they take a few too many trips to the sin bin. Why not come check it out for yourself this coming Friday night at 8pm when the Avalanche host the Boyle Blazers. This should be a good one!

This past Friday, the boys travelled up to Boyle to take on the Blazers and took very few penalties. In fact only one penalty for each team in this game. A little weird? The game was a barn burner. The Avalanche and Blazers were all knotted up at 3 all after 40 minutes. The Avalanche ended up winning in dramatic fashion.

A goal in the first period by rugged Dusty Pankiw assisted by veteran winger Chase ‘Rink Rat’ Dorey. Then in the second period Jaden ‘Jet Stream’ Van Maarion would but it on cruise scoring one assisted by  ‘Lightning Liam’ Ludlage and D man Evan ‘Batman’ Ockerman. Another one by the same line, this time Lightning Liam would score, assisted by Jetstream and Batman.

Starting the third period, the long and lanky defenseman, Batman, adding another goal to take the lead. Assisted by Lightning and ‘King Cole’ Bendixen. But not giving in, the Blazers answered with two goals of their own to take the 5-4 lead.

Late in the third period, King Cole would tie the game, set up by Lightning and his big brother the bruiser D Man, Hotwheels. With the game tied at 5 all and less than three minutes left, the King would do it again, scoring the winner assisted by team captain Nick ‘Sparky’ Anderson and guess who? None other than the set up specialist Lightning.

A huge win for the Avalanche, making the trip home in minus 30 weather seem a lot shorter.  The King being rewarded by his proud father, head coach Marty Bendixen with a big box of Timbits for the ride home.

Now talking about Timbits. Our little Timbits, the Micro Novice played an awesome game here Saturday morning against Saddle Lake. This was the most exciting game of the year for our team who scored a dozen and a half goals.

Lennox ‘All Out’ St Arnault with 8 goals. Hudson the ‘Hammer’ Krankowski with 6 goals. Clear the track, here comes Shack! Stetson ‘Shack’ Reynolds with a hat trick. ‘Mount Everett’ Hahn scoring his first goal of his career. Guaranteed his dad, head coach Ryan Hahn will be saving that puck. For sure it won’t be his last!

Zander ‘Zorro’ Goertzen coming up with some huge saves while in net. Jaydn ‘Spectacular’ Sakowsky with some terrific for-checking forcing turnovers. On defense ‘Tornado’ Aarbo, ‘General Lee’ Barstad and ‘Jumbo Jay’ Large were blocking shots and clearing out the front of the cage.

The Novice Avalanche played back to back against two different St Paul teams here at home.

The Atom Avalanche had a big four point weekend playing a home and home series against Bonnyville, winning both of the games.

On Saturday, in Bonnyville the Avalanche won 4-1. Two goals for Evett ‘Snoop Dog’ Smereka. Madden ‘Mad Dog’ Flamand and Brendan ‘Buzz Saw’ Kadutski with one goal each. ‘Without A Trace’ Morgan getting the only assist listed on the game sheet. For sure there’s always other assists that don’t get recorded. The biggest reason is because in many of these games at the Atom level, the referees are young and don’t always see who sets up the plays.

That was not the case here at home during the Atom game on Sunday  Our referees, the tandem brothers ‘Hank the Tank’ and Charlie ‘Chuckles’ Rogal, are a little bit older and are really on the ball. They reported lots of assists and a called great game with a number of penalties. Great job by the two young Zebras!

The final score 11-3 for the Avalanche.  Mad Dog with 5 goals and 1 assist. Snoop Dog with 2 goals and 2 assists. ‘Notorious Nolan’ Ballas with a goal and an assist. Riley ‘Coyote’ Bourne, ‘Without a Trace’ and Rhyley ‘ Clutch’ Kozicky with one goal each.  Two assists each for Raif ‘Rug Rat’ Evans Anderson and Kaysen ‘Dynamite’ DeMossiac. Braylee ‘Little Willy’ Lesyk, ‘Boe Dog’ St. George and the Buzz Saw with one helper each.

Even though the score was very one sided, head coach Jeff Morgan made sure his team passed the puck and managed to set up some of the players that rarely score. Good job by him and his assistants who are preparing the team for the provincials. Not on the score sheet but doing a great job on defense for her first time every was ‘Hurricane Kayl’ Warawa. And of course, let’s not forget goalie  ‘Goodyear Charlie’ Lesyk. He always shows up ready to play no matter how many or how few the shots on goal.

As the snow drifted across the road on late Saturday afternoon the Peewee Avalanche headed  up to Lac La Biche to meet the Clippers

coming back home with two points, the final score  4-3.  Two all after the first period.  ‘Top Gunner’ Crawford scoring bothgoals for the Avalanche, one assisted by Sam ‘Spiderman’ Rogal and one going coast to coast all alone.

On the power play in the second period, Timmy ‘the Freight Train’ putting one up and over the goaltender. ‘Freight Train’ parking his big locomotive right in front of the Clippers goaltender and was impossible to move. ‘Bo Diddley’ Fontaine doing all the dirty work, getting his hands dirty in the corner to get the puck out to the Freight Train. Late in the third period ‘Saint Nick’ Penner would seal the deal scoring one all alone, the Clippers pulling the goalie to add the extra attacker but only got one shot on ‘Kid Kade’ Fontaine. The ‘Kid ‘ coming up huge as he usually does in these pressure situations.

In out of town action. The Lakeland Midget Female Jaguars goaltender Heaven ‘Brick House’ Colbourne played a terrific game on Sunday in Bonnyville in a 6-2 win over St Paul. Brick House faced 25 shots and came up huge on a few breakaways early in the third period when the score was still within reach with only a two goal spread at the time.

On Friday night, the Jags played in Dewberry winning over the Wild 4-2 . It wasn’t Brick House’s turn in the rotation that night. She was happy with the win, but disappointed she wasn’t able to face any of her old team mates from the Storm, one of them Jenna ‘Precious’ Poitras.

Precious failed to find the twine, but had a great opportunity to tie the game late in the third on a beauty one timer. Precious has been playing really well and contributing in many other ways especially when the team is short handed. These two teams will be meeting in the first round of Provincials the time and date yet to be determined. Good to see the girls hugging after the game. Might not be as friendly the  next time they meet in the Provincial round robin.

Another former Storm player now playing for the Lakeland Jags Female Bantam team, Jadey ‘the Lady’ Capjack was selected to play in the North Central League All Star game held in Provost on this past Saturday, her team winning 6-5.