Some hockey road trips are like getting a sucker stuck in your hair. The good news is that you have a sucker and enough hair to get it stuck in. The bad news is that somebody is going to have to extract this tasty treat from your locks, and its going to hurt.
Last weekend the Jasper PeeWee Bears completed a road trip through the Boreal Riviera with stops in Athabasca, Slave Lake and Swan Hills, and there were moments of tutti-frutti and moments of sticky coiffure extraction.
Saturday鈥檚 tour stop was Athabasca, the little university town on the banks of the river that rises in Jasper. Although our kids were able to work out the 鈥渂us legs鈥� with some running around in the athletic facility field house, they had their familiar slow start, going down one nothing in the third minute of play when the Hawks trapped the Bears in their own zone.
The Bears were also hamstrung by the loss of power forward Dylan Dekker who, on his first shift, received a deep cut on his thigh from an opponent鈥檚 skate blade, ultimately requiring stitches. The remainder of the period was a back-and-forth affair with Jasper taking the lead temporarily on the strength of a pair of goals from Matteo Tassoni, and a marker from linemate Lucas Oeggerli.
But Athabasca would get three more of their own to take a one-goal lead into the first intermission.
After the first though, Jasper鈥檚 goaltender Kelan Polard and the four-man D would shut the door, holding the Hawks scoreless for the final 40 minutes, while the Bears were able to bend the twine four more times.
In the second, Tassoni completed his hattrick and Dana Angebrandt powered a low shot through a crowd to give Jasper a one-goal lead after two periods.
In the third, Oeggerli and Sebastian Golla put the icing on the cake for the Bears with a goal each to give Jasper a 7鈥�4 victory against the Athabasca Hawks. It was a sweet victory plucked from some early anxious moments.
Sunday found the Bears in Swan Hills after overnighting in Slave Lake, the halfway point on the tour. On the one previous encounter between these two clubs, Jasper came out on top by an 8鈥�1 margin, so the Bears entered the game with justifiable confidence. However, the Swan Hills Grizzlies had their own brand of self assurance and it showed on the ice.
Indeed, after the first period, the Grizzlies led 1鈥�0 largely on the strength of outstanding defensive play around their own net. The Bears are usually good for a couple of rebound goals each game, but the Grizzlies鈥� goaltender was solid on the first shot, and the team in front of him was consistent at clearing away the puck. Jasper was not getting its usual second chances.
Being down a goal after 20 minutes is nothing new for the Bears, but in the second their top shooters could not hit the net, and Swan Hills came back with two more giving the Grizzlies a three-goal lead after 40 minutes.
It is not much of a stretch for the Bears to score three or more goals in one period, but with the Grizzlies bearing down defensively, Jasper was in tough.
Winger Baden Koss gave Jasper life eight minutes in with a beautiful shot from the slot that found the back of the net, but Swan Hills would get that one back a minute later, and with seven minutes to play, Jasper was three goals behind again.
The Bears could not solve the Swan Hills鈥� defensive shell, despite sustained pressure in the offensive zone, and the final buzzer would sound with a score of 4鈥�1 for Swan Hills.
With the sucker stubbornly entangled in the Bears鈥� hair, the team鈥檚 coaches will have some careful consoling to do to ensure the kids can taste the sweetness of the extracted candy and not just feel the sting of the pulled hair.
The Bears are idle next weekend, but resume play on the road completing the Boreal Riviera tour with visits to Whitecourt and Fox Creek.
You can read about it here.
John Wilmshurst Special to the 51暗网
