In space, nobody can hear you cheer.
The Jasper Bantam Bearcats hosted their rivals from Edson last Saturday with both teams shooting for their first victory. The previous weekend, Jasper lost to our neighbours, Hinton, and Edson has gone down to both Hinton and league-leaders Mayerthorpe in its first two games.
So each team was reaching for the stars and looking for a big bang that would propel them to their first entry into the win column.
The game opened with teams orbiting around each other, looking for openings and opportunities. Goaltending was solid on both ends, as Jasper netminder Severin Golla shook off last weeks’ shaky start and his Edson counterpart looked to make amends for the previous weeks’ shellings.
It wasn’t until 14 minutes into the game that Bearcats’ Rhys Malcolm scored his first of a handful off of a point shot that deflected into the net.
Bearcat winger Crimson Derbowka put Jasper up by two just before the close of the first period, poking in a rebound from a Brendan Auger rocket from the point.
A minute into the second period, Edson pulled within one using that same trick, but Malcolm’s second goal, less than a minute later, put Jasper up again by two.
Then the heavens opened up.
Jasper scored four more goals in the second, with two more from Malcolm (his third and fourth), one from Cooper Hilworth and one from Auger (shorthanded). At the end of two, the score stood 7–1 for our Bearcats.
Jasper scored twice more in the third. Malcolm would complete his quintet and Hayden Hart, back for his first game in recent memory, would make no mistake on a beautiful Hilworth feed for Jasper’s ninth goal.
Edson scored one more in the game, a low blast that caught Golla off guard, but that wastn’t enough to reel in the interstellar Bearcats.
The final score was 9–2 for Jasper; the Bearcats’ first victory of the 2014-15 campaign.
Jasper will cool its jets for a week, but will boldly go to Mayerthorpe in two weeks to face the Mustangs.
Another space odyssey for Jasper.
John Wilmshurst
Special to the 51°µÍø
