Dec 17, 2011 | stottle | 539 views
Black Friday in Waterloo
The St. Thomas Bantam Jr. Stars had many reasons to come away from the RIM Sportsplex in Waterloo on Friday evening shaking their heads. An inability to effect or accept a pass, an embarrassingly poor power play, and an inexplicable lack of offense led to a frustrating 2-1 loss to the Waterloo Black Wolves. The game, however, was more noteworthy for the unfortunate events which transpired with only 29 seconds left on the clock.
Waterloo opened the scoring in the first two minutes of play. Wolves centre Brad Schnarr cut around a St. Thomas defender in the high slot and let go a wrist shot which caught the top corner over the left shoulder of Brennan Agius. The remainder of the first period was relatively uneventful as neither team was able to generate much offense. The only power play opportunity of the period for the Stars featured several missed passes, which led to an inability to set up in the Waterloo zone and establish any meaningful offensive threat.
A missed defensive assignment at 11:34 of the second period left Brendan Henriques all alone in front of the St. Thomas net. After a nice feed from Matthew Brecht, Henriques slammed the puck home past a helpless Agius to give the Black Wolves a 2-0 lead.
Jesse Tottle gave the Jr. Stars some life midway through the second period when he picked up a loose puck in the neutral zone and sped past the lone Wolves defenceman on a breakaway. Waterloo netminder Michael Frazer bit hard on Tottle's deke to the backhand and could only watch as Jesse flipped a forehand into the open side to narrow the deficit to 2-1. Zach Smith was credited with an assist on the play.
Frazer made up for the goal only moments later with an impressive save off his left shoulder to stymie Michael McArthur on another Stars breakaway.
The third period was controlled by the Jr. Stars but featured two more remarkably inept power play opportunities. With just over a minute to play, the Stars pulled Agius in favour of an extra attacker. St. Thomas generated several scoring opportunities, but could not capitalize. Then, with 29 seconds left in the game, the dogs of hell were unleashed.
After a St. Thomas shot sailed wide of the Waterloo net, the puck caromed off the end boards and up along the left side boards toward Andrew Baxter waiting just inside the blue line. Just above the hash marks, Jesse Tottle lifted the stick of a Waterloo defender to ensure that Andrew would be able to receive the puck. However, Mr. Baxter had already made up his mind that he was going to inflict some punishment on the Waterloo player rather than make a play the puck. Seemingly oblivious to the puck trickling by his skates, Andrew closed in on the unsuspecting Waterloo forward to unleash a devastating, and clearly illegal, body check.
With the memory of L'il Baxter's last performance against the Waterloo Black still fresh in their minds, all five members of the Wolves on the ice at the time, including the goaltender, immediately rushed to the aid of their fallen teammate. To their credit, all five teammates of the Stars then rushed to defend Mr. Baxter from the impending onslaught. A full-out melee ensued resulting in a large pile of skates, limbs and swinging mitts.
Somehow, Andrew Baxter manages to crawl out from under the pile, seemingly unscathed. The rest of combatants continued to flail away until the officials were finally able to regain control. The Stars played the remainder of the game short-handed and with their goalie pulled but were unable to net the equalizer.
Game Notes: Unfortunately, the numbers pulled out of the hat by the officials for suspensions belong to Dane Jacoletti and Dylan Newman. Dane will be forced to sit out two games for fighting....Dylan received a misconduct for the second fight in the same stoppage of play, which carries a five game suspension....Andrew Baxter received his second major penalty for head contact which carries an automatic four game suspension....that is in addition to losing Josh Mallory indefinitely with a ruptured ACL....when it rains, it pours....on a brighter note, since ending his streak of failed breakaways, Jesse Tottle has now scored on his last three consecutive breakaways....hope everyone has a good time at our final fundraising event tonight....until next time... keep your stick on the ice, cover the short side and don't get deked.