FLyers down Spirit in game 1

The Flyers continued their playoff winning streak last night with a 3-1 victory in game 1 over Spirit River. FSJ is now 4 and 0 in the playoffs so far but last night's win was much different than the previous 3 blowouts against Lakeland. The Rangers come to play and they compete hard if not always fairly and they also have fabulous goaltending in the form of Matt Yesminski. The Flyers, on the other hand, are gearing up for a MacKenzie Cup series in early April and have been looking forward to playing Spirit River to get as close to that AAA level as they can in their A league. And the Flyers played like a AAA level hockey club for the first time in a while although this has more to do with the level of competition they have been playing rather than their own performance. The Flyers pounded the Rangers physically all night, they dominated puck possession and they vastly outshot Spirit River. The coaching staff was even happy with the PP based on puck movement and getting shots to the net and not on the results of those power plays as the Flyers were 1 for 10. Goals from Shuya, Noble and an empty netter from Todd Alexander ensured the victory along with a solid performance from goalie Troy Hunt. He only saw about 15 shots and only maybe 2 quality scoring chances but made an unreal save to absolutely rob Spirit River late in the third when the score was 2-1.

Dustin Kersey told me after the game it was the most lopsided 3-1 game he had ever been a part of. Good to see the Flyers are putting revenge for some late season cheap shots by Spirit to the back burner while they focus on preparing for AAA play. Stony Plain is through the final series in Aberta by the way and Bentely has been pushed to a game 7 which will go Wednesday night to see who will play Stony in the series which will decide who hosts the Flyers in the Mac cup.

I enjoyed watching the Ref get into it with the time keeper Gary Hunt last night over 4 seconds being put on the clock. The ref eventually tossed Mr Hunt who was upset because he was sure he had stopped the clock properly. I like the passion hockey brings out and thought it was funny to see Troy Hunt's dad getting kicked out of a game as a timekeeper. Haven't seen that before.