Coach Bob could not have arranged a better exhibition series
with another team than with St. George Generals, in an effort to help prepare
our team for the start of our league season.
St. George hosted the first of two games on the 16th of October and this was a great opportunity for many of our Paris boys to scrimmage with some of their high school friends from St. George. Apart from the chit chatting before the game and in between face offs, it was all business for both teams.
Reviewing both benches, the Generals had a slight advantage with the number of extra players they had on the bench, including two goalies; however, for what our Wolfpack was lacking in numbers our players made up in endurance and strong team playing.
The first period was some fantastic playing between both teams and the score remained at zero until the 2:45 minute mark when the Generals earned the first goal of the game. A few seconds later our Wolfpack were given a power play opportunity as a result of a hooking penalty that was called with 1:53 remaining in the period, meaning our power play would carry over for a few remaining seconds into the second period.
Unfortunately, the first Wolfpack goal of the game didn’t come until later into the second period when Josh H provided Riley Mc.H. with a pass that would help him place the puck in the back of the net. By this time of the game we were still behind by a goal, as St. George had a goal in each of the two periods. However, it was not long before Paris turned the tables and were now scoring with less than two minutes apart did Riley Mc. H.reciprocate Josh’s pass, with a pass of his own, to Josh who was able to score and tie up the game at 2-2.
Although, the game continued with some great play opportunities by both teams, the only actions taht were recorded at the end of the second and third periods were game penalties. This included Paris taking an Interference penalty and half way through this initial penalty, our team was caught with a Too Many Players on the ice penalty, forcing us to play 2 players short-handed. Fortunately, our trio of players were able to get the puck out of our zone and keep it out until the end of the penalty avoiding any scoring opportunities for our Generals opponents.
As time dwindled down both teams made final efforts to score but time beat them both and the Wolfpack and Generals would have to settle for a tie game and await their rematch for their next chance at earning a win.
Nine days later we hosted the 2nd game of our two game series with the St. George Generals, this time around we had a full squad minus Lucas C. As a continuation of the previous game between these two teams, play was very even and a lot of back and forth chances for both teams. On one particular rush up along the boards Riley caught the ref off guard and accidentally held back the rush up the ice but it didn’t faze Riley who countered back with a good back checking to regain the puck for our team.
Our Wolfpack found ourselves in a little trouble by having back to back penalties that we had to kill off, which we were able to do but it left our players drained. In fact, our goalie Caleb sensing our players fatigue forced a change of shift by holding a glove save to get a whistle call and a must needed shift change. With 16 seconds remaining in our first period, Jonah took a wrist shot that clearly beat the unsuspecting goalie; unfortunately, his shot connected with the cross bar just missing out on a nice goal.
The long overdue wait of a first goal came off the stick of Josh with just 44 seconds into the second period that gave our team a needed boost to get our players back into the game a big thanks to Evan and Kaleb (1st assist of the season) for helping set up the goal. St. George returned a minute later with what could have been a goal yet if it wasn’t for Caleb’s perfect read of the Generals deek attempt that he cut short with a full leg pad extension to cover the opening of the other side of his net. How he didn’t hyper extend his leg during this save is beyond me, just watching it made my leg sore.
Riley McH. had a great play by rushing past a number of defenders for a break away chance that was cut short by the St. George net minder. At many points during the game it was intense and the Generals bench were not trying to disguise their plays as you can hear their coach yelling out plays including to ice the puck from their zone, which helped Riley McL respond well with getting to the boards and block a retreating puck and keep it in their zone to extend our teams scoring chances.
Deryk earned his first assist of the season by setting up a goal for Fletcher that earned him his first goal of the season by surprising the goalie by a behind the net shot that caught the back of the goalies equipment and fall into the net, putting our team up 2-0 in the game.
Our lead was cut short at the 2.5 minute remaining mark in the second period as St. George’s #9 player scored the first goal for the Generals, this same player went on to score two more goals in the game to earn a hat trick and perhaps could have scored a winning goal of the game if he was not ejected from the game for fighting.
The last period ended well with Josh stick handling around 3 players before tucking the puck behind the St. George net minder to tie up the game.
A final lucky play occurred with Josh, who was serving a penalty for Riley McL, came out of the penalty box and received a long pass up the ice to him and had a breakaway chance that just missed short of a winning goal for our team.
All in all a great 2 game exhibition series with our St. George rivals, until we meet again!
Go Wolfpack Go!
Kevin Noseworthy