Friday night curfew ... helps Wolfpack secure a win against Tornadoes 2
Friday night was game night for the Bantam LL3 and it meant
another road trip West on the 401 to meet the Tillsonburg Tornadoes 2. This was the same team that our players met
up with last weekend at our Welland hotel; unfortunately, our teams were not in
the same weekend hockey tournaments, so we would have to wait until this Friday
to play each other in our regular league game.
The last time we played Tornadoes 2 was back on November 2 at our home arena with the result of a 2 – 0 win for our team. A quick review of the first half of the standings showed that Tillsonburg 2 finished just ahead of our team with 2 extra points, so this rematch would be a more challenging pair up.
Entering the Tillsonburg arena, players were pumped to see that we would be playing on the Kinsmen Memorial rink, the rink reserved for the Tillsonburg Hurricanes, Junior A hockey team, which meant playing in front of a large seating stadium.
Hours before game time I received notice of an ill Liam, forcing us to pull a forward to play our defensive line and to balance our two forward lines a second forward was dropped back to defence. Fortunately, for our team we have half a dozen players who can fill in on either forward or defence to help our team in a pinch.
Last minute dressing room coaching instructions was prolonged in an attempt to bide time for our delayed arrival goalie who was quick to suit up and lead out our team on the ice.
The start of the game was very uneventful and coaches questioned why our players weren’t skating as hard as they can from previous games. This sluggishness allowed the Tornadoes to swoop in and score a quick goal on our team with less than 2 minutes in play.
As time grew on in the first period, our players seemed to find their legs and start skating like their old ways. At this time, Ryan picked up the puck and force his way to the net getting a shot on the net that rebounded which was tipped in by the awaiting Fletcher, to even up the score 1-1.
As our bench erupted with cheers, I noted that this type of out front rebound goal is becoming Fletcher’s great trademark and we should nick name him the front porch goal scorer. As easy as it may look to tip in a goal, it is important to remember that Fletcher endures a lot of mistreatment from his opponents as they try to clear him from their goalies crease.
Often, Fletcher returns to the bench after his front net goals and is heard remarking to his peers, did you hear what he called me ..., did you see how hard that player slashed me or where was the referee after that hit against me?
Penalties, up to this point in the game, were not an issue as there were no penalties for either team. However, with the start of the second period, both teams turned up their intensity and tempers were raised, resulting in incidental penalties for each of our teams. Down a forward player for 2 minutes, we asked Evan to help out on a forward line so that we can balance the two forward lines, this decision later proved to be very instrumental in this game. As a few minutes later, Evan scored our second goal of the game that was assisted by Hayden and Ian, providing us with the lead that we held on to for the duration of the game.
Our third period was scheduled to be a 15 minute length of play; unfortunately, we were told at the start of the game by the referees that we can be curfewed at 7:50pm to allow for the Junior A game to start at 8pm. Our third period was busy with many stoppages of play that added up time, realizing the true time Terry prompted me to take watch of the clock on the wall as we were quickly counting down the end to the game. We urged our players to keep the puck deep in our opponents zone and kill off the few remaining minutes to earn our next win, which they were able to do; however, not without a great battle from our Tillsonburg 2 Tornadoes opponents.
Great win Wolfpack LL3, next game is a home game Sunday, January 22/17 at 5:50pm against the top dog team Delhi Rockets with 6 points, 2 extra points more than our team, who have a perfect 3 game win streak in the second half of the league season!