Icy cold winds blew in from the north Friday night, and so did the Carleton Place Canadians. This team not only displayed a physically imposing look, they also happened to be the number one team in the league right now. The Bears, wearing their maroon heritage uniforms for the last home game before Christmas, were more than ready to take them on. Fans from both camps cheered for their teams (the Canadians even brought in the cavalry on stick horse), the battle royal of the two longstanding rivals for the hockey supremacy in Lanark County was set to begin.
No team was able to make an advance for much of the first period. Brendan Dempsey finally broke the stale mate with a power play goal at 15:26, assisted by Cameron McLean and Ethan Nystrom.
Carleton Place rebounded with a score by Ayo Adeniye at 13:37 in the second period. Daniel Nelson then shot the second goal for the Canadians at 15:11, a score which left a bit of an aftertaste, as the puck only went on the line but didn’t actually cross it according to the goal judge.
Smiths Falls leveled the score board at 7:51 in the third period with a goal by Theo Todd, assisted by Tate Leeson and Bruce Coltart. Carleton Place took the lead again with a score by Brett Thorne in the last the seconds of a power play advantage. The time was ticking for the Bears. Helped by Tate Leeson and Theo Todd, the task fell on Noah Adams to achieve balance again with a score at 14:44. Justin Trudel pressed on to advance the Bears with a goal shortly after at 15:01, assisted by Brendan Dempsey and Cade Helmer. This prompted the Canadians to take an out-time to come up with a counteroffensive to turn luck around. Their solution however emerged as the age-old practically almost always failing strategy of taking out the goalie. It may have worked once upon a time in a galaxy far far away and the myth still lives on, but in modern day hockey it appears to be a little outdated. As expected, the strategy backfired and the Bears landed yet another goal. Shot at 19:42 by Ryan Richardson into the empty net with the assist going to Alexander Caulfield.
With that the Bears took away the 5:3 win over the Canadians.
For all the joy over the win the Bears still have to work on their offensives, displayed by the fact that the team was out-shot 25 to 33 by the Canadians.
First Star went to Justin Trudel, Second Star was awarded to Theo Todd and the Canadians Ryan Mosley took Third Star.
