Woowee what a game! The house was rockin, the players were fighting and the Tigers were winning! Unfortunately It was a couple hundred fans short of a sellout.
If some of the goal recaps are wrong, I'll eventually change them.
For the Highlights go check out Tigers TV when they have them up.
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Summary
I thought the first period was fairly even. The Tigers were battling through the Ice trap, but were still getting caught with turnovers. Kootenay had a few good chances to score but the desperation in all off the Tigers defenders was pretty impressive. They were smacking loose pucks away before they hit the ice, and blocking shots with anything they could use.
The Second period their was a huge change in the momentum of the game.
The Tigers found a way to limit their turnovers, and create offense within Kootenay's trap. As a result the Ice chances decreased, and the Tigers scoring chances went up.
The third period the Tigers kept playing hard, everyone was sacrificing themselves to get the puck out. They were frustrating the Ice quite a bit, and the Ice really stepped up their physical game. They made quite a few hard hits.
Recap
Todd Mathews looked shaky during the opening 7-8 minutes, but unfortunately the Tigers were only able to get 1 goal during that time before he calmed down. However Mathews made some very good saves later in the game. Emerson Etem from the top of the face-off picked the lower left hand corner. 1-0 Tigers**edit Later**
The Ice would get a powerplay opportunity late in the first period. Kundratek tripped up his man, and in return the Ice player used his stick and tripped up a tiger. Unfortunately the back-ref who made the call turned his head for a split second toward the Tigers bench and missed the play. Just after the PP ended, About 20 seconds after their was a scramble at the Tigers net, and unfortunately the puck squirted loose and Tyler Bunz booted it into his own net.
Tie Game 1-1
Jace Coyle would put the Tigers ahead on the Powerplay. Their was a scramble down low, it looked like Todd Mathews initially had the puck but it squirted loose as the Tigers jammed the Net. They went upstairs briefly and counted it. 2-1 Tigers
Then all Hell broke loose...sort of.
Near the end of the Third KootenayBretton Cameron undressed a Kootenay Defender and went all alone. Mathews Stopped the first shot, but left a big rebound out. The puck ended up on Wacey Hamilton's stick. He was on his backhand and just shoved it into the net tripping himself up. He would slide into the net with Mathews, and It appeared at first like nothing was going to happen.
3-1 Tigers
Then Bretton Cameron came racing in, pushing the net off and dragging Mathews off of Hamilton, who appeared to giving Wacey a complimentary face-wash. That didn't sit well with Brayden Mcnabb who earlier tried to goad Cameron into a fight. Mcnabb raced in and they started rough-housing and all off a sudden everyone came flying in doing the ballroom blitz.
With the ref in the way Cameron gave Mcnabb a shot to the head, and they started jostling, and eventually the ref left them to settle out their business. They both looked fairly tired, and all it was, was a short wrestling match.
The Tigers would add an empty net goal, as Joey Frazer from his own blueline would shoot the puck down the length of the ice.
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Some thoughts
Their is a nastiness settling in for both teams. They played each other 3 teams near the end of the Season, and their have been quite a few after the whistle scrums, these two teams really hate each other. The Tigers really came and battled tonight. Tyler Bunz was fairly sharp, even though Kootenay seemed to get quite a bit of traffic in front of him. A bounce here or there and it could have been a different game.
I can see the rest of the series becoming bit of a chess match in their systems play, but hopefully the Tigers can continue to play like they did in the second and third periods.
I was surprised to see Bretton Cameron get a game misconduct and a charging major.I think game misconducts are reviewable by the league but there no way a suspension should result from that. All he did was the linesman job in pulling players apart, then dealing with an attack from behind, and he got charged a 5 minute major for it. Very weak call and luckily it was too late in the game to change the results. The refs seemed to call the odd penalties tonight.
Their was a very weird happening I dont think I've seen before. Within a span of two minute, players skating by each othermade contact and went down akwardly, and in both cases it honestly looked like both palyers were embelishing it,however they both were not.
It happened to Reinhart for Kootenay as Okal gave him a slight bump, and Bretton Cameron for the Tigers as he took a high stick. Both looked like soft plays(but weren't), both were pretty Angy. I was very surprised the refs didn't call anything.
2 comments:
You're wrong about what happened to Reinhart. He got blindsided by Okal after the play had turned up ice. It was a shoulder to the chest not a stick to the throat.
*edited Main post*
I didn't exactly see the Reinhart incident, but it looked like he was grabbing near his face.
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