CHRIS UHLIG

What a week it was for the Bears, tears of pain and joy side by side, a bumpy road covered with detours and potholes (or was it ice holes?) all the way. But before we get into the details, let’s get the most important piece of the news out of the way first – the Bears have found their way into the finals, more about it later in the article.

Tuesday, April the 9th, saw the team potentially taking their third straight win of the series, but it wasn’t to be. Cornwall took a 4:1 win home from the den. Worse, much of the pain came self inflicted via penalties, allowing Cornwall to score two powerplay goals alone. The single Smiths Falls score is owed to Lucas Culhane, who scored late in the first period, coincidently also a powerplay goal.

The Bears however found solace two days later with a hard fought 4:3 overtime win at the Ed Lumley arena in Cornwall. After two scores by Cornwall it was up to Travis Ouellette to bring the Bears onto the scoreboard at 12:42 in the first period. Finnegan Kilmurrey then evened the chances with a goal at 12:42 in the second period. However Cornwall once again took the lead at the start of the third period, leaving Quinn Booth to play catch-up with a powerplay goal at 11:42. Trevor Faucher finally forced the decision at 3:48 in the first overtime period to bring the Bears to the win.

The chances looked good for the Bears to win the series on home ice at the Friday game. But once again, Fortuna had other ideas. The game had to be cancelled due to unsafe ice conditions. Problems with the air conditioning and a leak in the roof caused a hole straight to the concrete floor right at one of the nets. After much deliberation the hard decision had to be made and the unhappy, disappointed fans and players were sent home. Comments on social media weren’t too kind towards facility management.

The rescheduled game got finally underway Sunday afternoon and let’s just say, the Bears were pumped and looked to rip some meat metaphorically speaking.

Trevor Faucher scored first at &:15 in the first period, assisted by Lucas Culhane and Kyle James. Culhane then took a powerplay advantage to score next at 11:56, assisted by Owen Watson and Matthew Herb this time. Quinn Booth followed barely half a minute later at 12:35 with another score, the assists being credited to Davis hails and Tyson Parker. Not to be outdone, Travis Ouellette figured that four might be a good number on the scoreboard and helped the puck into the net at 16:06 with support by Owen Watson and Matthew Dimaline.

The second period saw just one goal, the only break for the Colts, a powerplay score by Brayden Bowen at 1:07.

The Bears weren’t done mincing horse meat though and Alec Hamady scored next in the third period at 2:23, assisted by Finnegan Kilmurray. The honour of the final goal of the series however goes to Tyson Parker with a powerplay score at the 15:54 mark; Davis Hails and Quinn Booth assisted him.

First Star of the game went to Quinn Booth, Dawson Labre earned Second Star, and Third Star was awarded to Xander Miceli of the Colts.

Not surprisingly, the Bears proved once again their strong performance with shots on net, outpacing the Colts 43 to 27.

And with that the Bears finished the semifinals with a 6:1 win over the Colts, advancing to the finals of the Bogart Cup with the Navan Grads as their new opponent. The first game of the new series will be held in Navan April 19th, the first home game is scheduled for Sunday April 21st at 5 p.m.

Author: Hometown News