“When we’ve got the puck, they can’t score.” – Paul Coffey
Your Sooke Atom C-2 team was defeated in the last minute of a nailbiter over the weekend by the Victoria Ice Hawks at the Archie Browning Recreational Center in an early coffee morning match. The teams were tied 2-2 until the last minute of the match when an icing call on the Thunderbirds forced a faceoff in their own zone. Just off the faceoff the ice hawks forward wristed one towards Sooke’s netminder, Connor Bainbridge, and caught a defender’s stick on the way. The wicked wood deflection caused the puck to flutter up high, and descend over the glove of Bainbridge, barely inching its way across the goaline. Seven seconds left on the clock was not enough time for the Thunderbirds to score one to tie the match.
Sooke C-2’s Peter Mackinnon scored the first goal at 13.85 of the first period. Victoria came back to tie it up 1-1 about 5 minutes later.
In the 2nd period, Thunderbird Atom player John Stalker dug away and flipped his own rebound off the stick of the Ice Hawk’s netminder at the 10 minute mark to put Sooke up 2-1. However, shortly thereafter the Ice Hawks bounced one off of Bainbridge’s glove and over his stick into the mesh behind to tie the game up and it stood at 2-2 after 2.
At least Coach Drew McKinnon could be proud of his defense – Which was the order of the day for both sides as the Thunderbird Atom team managed only about a dozen shots during the game while the Ice Hawks racked up about 17. Parking in the fire zone was a popular activity this Saturday morning at Archie Browning.
By Mike Clouser