Last week, on top of a make-up game on Thursday against local rivals, the Hinton Hurricanes, the Jasper PeeWee Bears completed their Boreal Riviera Tour with stops in Whitecourt and Fox Creek on Saturday and Sunday.
On Thursday, the Hurricanes rolled into town with huge expectations. The last game these two teams played was a barn-burner, with Hinton taking an early lead, but the Bears coming back for a one-goal victory as the game wound down. Anticipating a battle, the Jasper kids were nervous, and when Hinton took a one-nothing lead into the first intermission, the tension was palpable.
Then, three minutes into the second, centre Matteo Tassoni buried a Sebastian Golla feed to even the score and four minutes later, Jacob Bartziokas fired a blast from the point that found the back of the net to give Jasper the lead.
The Bears would pad that lead with two more goals, off Tassoni鈥檚 and Golla鈥檚 sticks, but Bartziokas鈥� second period marker would stand as the game winner in a 4鈥�1 victory over the Hurricanes.
Saturday, the third place Bears boarded a bus for Whitecourt to take on the ninth place Wolverines. Given their disappointment two weeks ago, losing to the underdog team from Swan Hills, Jasper was not going to take Whitecourt lightly.
Indeed, this was apt as the Wolverines took a 1鈥�0 lead early in the first period, and Jasper was looking like they were in tough again. However, Dylan Dekker evened the score on a shorthanded marker mid-way through the period, and by the end of the first, Jasper led 4鈥�2.
Two goals would be all that netminder Kelan Polard would allow in his net, as it turned out, with an outstanding game between the pipes, turning away 31 shots.
Jasper would pour in six more for a 10鈥�2 victory. Tassoni with five goals, Dekker with three and Golla scoring two in the final tally.
On Sunday, though, the Bears would need a seismic shift in their strategy to fare so well against the league leading Fox Creek Bulldogs.
With only one loss this season, the Bulldogs rely on constant offensive pressure to overwhelm opponents. But with their one loss being to our very own Bears back in November, Jasper was not going to have to move heaven and earth to get a win.
After the first 20 minutes, the game was knotted at two, with the Bulldogs jumping to a quick 2鈥�0 lead, that was equalized by Tassoni with goals in the eighth and 14th minutes. Unlike the game in Whitecourt the day before, puck possession was a tough task in Fox Creek, so Jasper had to work extremely hard to gain and keep the puck off of the tenacious Bulldog side.
In the second, despite aggressive offensive forays by Liam Crozier and Owen Kearnan, who was moved to forward for the weekend, Jasper couldn't find its range, while Fox Creek added two more to its total, both coming in the last five minutes of the period.
The effect of the long bus trip was becoming evident for our kids.
In the third, still working like battered roughnecks, Jasper was nevertheless unable to stop Fox Creek鈥檚 scoring pressure, relinquishing two goals in the sixth and seventh minutes. Golla would pull Jasper back to within three goals at the period's halfway mark, taking advantage of an unexpected bounce off a fracture in the ice that deposited the puck unexpectedly on his stick in front of a yawning cage. But, it wouldn鈥檛 be enough, and the game would end as a 6鈥�3 setback for the Bears.
Two victories in three games, and a solid performance in the single losing effort is nothing to hang your head over.
It was an impressive weekend of play. The regular season is now over for the Bears.
Playoff games have yet to be scheduled, but action could start as early as this weekend. Stay tuned.
John Wilmshurst
Special to the 51暗网
