When I sit in the stands amongst the parents, watching the game, my notes are filled with the details of goals scored, penalties taken and posts clanked.
For the second time in as many weeks, the Jasper Atom Bears travelled to Hinton to take on their milltown rivals. And while my pages included those important details, last Sunday they were equally crowded with the heroic efforts of the Bears鈥� defense, which was unheralded on the scoresheet, but told the real story of the game.
Second year D-man, Jacob Bartziokas set the tone early by chasing down a Hinton forward on a breakaway seven minutes into the opening frame, preventing a scoring chance. He, and linemate Dexter Fawcett, spent the whole game impressively hunting down wayward pucks and opponents, frustrating an otherwise potent Hinton offense.
But it was offensive gazelle Lucas Oeggerli who made it first to the scoresheet for Jasper, taking a backhand feed from Sebastian Golla and beating the IceHogs backstop with a shifty move at the net. One nothing Bears, 15 minutes into the game.
In what was left of the first, Jasper hemmed Hinton into its own zone, cycling the puck like pros and bottling up the IceHog forwards.
The Bears entered the second up by one, but Hinton would tie it up in under a minute, after Bears鈥� goalie Donovan Fawcett lost track of the puck in his crease and Hinton poked it home.
Loose pucks in front of the Jasper net became a rare commodity after this though, with Donovan vacuuming up everything in range. His finest move of the game came in the second, as he spectacularly tracked down a point-blank blast, stopping what should have been a sure goal in the middle frame.
Half way through the second, with a Hinton player in the box for interference, Nash Hilworth wired a low blast from the right circle that was in the back of the net before the Hinton goalie could react. Seven minutes later, Golla managed to pull the puck from his skates at the side of the net and feed it out front where it somehow found its way across the goal-line for Jasper鈥檚 third score.
But again, the stars of the second period were the blueliners. Michael Hayashi blocked four shots, demonstrating that you don鈥檛 need to be a two-storey high school fixture to be a living wall, and Tanner Carleton was working the poke check hard, forcing the IceHog forwards to swing wide to avoid his deadly accurate stabs.
The third period was lights out for Hinton, as Donovan gobbled up every puck that came into blue ice, and the Bears鈥� fifth defender, Owen Kearnan, showed the depth of his hockey experience by keeping those blue ice opportunities short.
Baden Koss, the third KOG in the Koss-Oeggerli-Golla line, scored Jasper鈥檚 fourth of the game, waltzing in from the neutral zone and zipping a wrister top-shelf. This goal came with five minutes left in the third, and would prove to be the final scoring play of the game, thanks again to the Jasper netminder.
With 3:44 to play, Carleton was forced to haul down a fleeing Hinton forward who was going in all alone. In the ensuing penalty shot, Donovan stood huge in his net, giving the Hinton sniper nothing to shoot at and the puck drifted high as the Jasper supporters, including a pair of recent Tonquin Avenue exiles, cheered wildly.
The game would end with a 4鈥�1 Jasper victory. The Bears now await their next opponents in two weeks鈥� time here in Jasper at 1 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 8.
I鈥檒l see you at the rink.
Trevor Nichols
[email protected]
