Monday, January 12, 2009

Flyers lose two close encounters with Stony Plain

The FSJ Senior Flyers played a weekend exhibition series against the Stony Plain Eagles Saturday and Sunday in Dawson Creek. First of all let me just say that while the Encana Events Center is a nice new modern building some of the design flaws in that place are laughable. The AV room faces away from the ice and doesn't have any windows. That would definitely make operating the "jumbotron" and providing music for hockey games more of a challenge. Also, why on earth is there no press box? If Dawson Creek was ever to get a Junior A hockey team surely there would need to be a press box from which to broadcast the games? Even places like Beaverlodge and Sexsmith have press boxes. And don't get me started on the bathrooms.

To the ice where in game one the Flyers got off to a shaky start when Chad Vizzutti let in a weak backhander that gave the Eagles a short handed opener. The Flyers responded with a shorty of their own when Ryan Carter used some hand eye co-ordination to steal a clearing atempt by Eagles goalie Jason Fricker who was then way out of position as Carter fed Dustin Kersey in front who equalized for the Flyers. Kersey, a Dawson Creek native, was perhaps the best Flyer forward throughout the course of the weekend. Tyler Brough scored for the Flyers as the first period ended 2 - 1 for the sort of home town team. In the second period the Eagles got goals from MacKee and Thompson to take a lead before Ryan Carter tied the game, again short handed, with a snipe just over the pad but under the blocker of Fricker and just inside the post on a partial breakaway. The game eventually ended in a shootout after Kersey was stopped on a breakaway almost straight from the face-off to start overtime and Vizzutti performed highway robbery stopping Clem Arsenault in front. Arsenault found himself all alone in front with the puck on his stick and enough time to bake a cake but he was robbed when Vizzutti stacked the pads in desperation. Drummond and Hennes scored in the shootout for Stony Plain and they took game one.

Game two saw Clayton Bahm score after some nice work in front of the net to tie the game at one after the first period. It was all down hill after that for the Flyers though as goals from Drummond, Arsenault and Beaudin cancelled out one from Dustin Kersey to make the score 4 to 2 after two periods of play. The Flyers had a number of opportunities on the PP in the third but were unable to cash any of them leading coach Brash to call the power play "atrocious" over the course of the weekend. Ryan Carter did set up another local star Adam Loncan but it was too little as the Eagles took game two by the same 4 to 3 margin.

Overall the Flyers will be dissapointed with the play of their PP and the series lacked the real physical edge that I think we were expecting. The good news is that once the McKenzie Cup roles around if these two teams play each other there will already be a healthy dislike between the teams. Especially after Dean Tiltgen from the Eagles speared a Flyer in the face in game two leading to some rough stuff and some trash talking from Wiensy. Two fights in game two as new comer Greg Lakovich, dude is intimidating on and off the ice, beat MacKee after landing an uppercut that snapped back the head of the Eagles player drawing a big reaction from the crowd. Tyler Loney also fought and was maybe just shaded to the decision.

Fan Tokey Roberts walked away with a new car after an exciting, if not overly well organized, shootout. Moose FM Sports director and Husky and Flyer play-by-play voice Jon Zacks was one number away from winning the chance to shoot for a new car. The winning ticket number ended in 063 and Zacks had 060, 061, and 062. Too bad he is cheap.

The Flyers get back to regular season play tomorrow night in Hythe. That game will be on Moose FM with pre-game at 8:15 local time.

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