Friday was a long and full day at the ice rink, with the Hawks teams playing back-to-back-to-back-to-back. (There was not much else to do in Finland anyway, as Good Friday is a major holiday and most shops and many restaurants are closed.) At one of the early tournament games, between two of the other (non-Hawks or -Vikings) teams, there had been an incident: the referee thought the coach had said something terribly inappropriate and called a 10-minute penalty. The coach protested that it wasn't he who had said it, it was a spectator standing just above him. The referee could not determine which spectator it was, so he told all of the spectators to clear out of the rink (and took back the penalty). This was such an unusual happening that it actually made the afternoon edition of the big Helsinki newspaper, with millions of subscribers.
At any rate, the Gibson team started the Hawks' day off at noon with a game against the Vikings. After all of the time spent mingling between the two clubs, this is always a highly anticipated game. However, the Hawks were playing with energy after their loss the previous night, and they ended up with a 6-1 win. Two goals were scored by Brendan George, and one each by Bobby Gibson, Brendan Leonard, Everhett Grimes, and Matthias Chernitsky; Everhett and Brendan George each also had two assists. Brendan George was named the Hawks MVP.
The Cappo team followed with a 2:00 p.m. game against the Ilves from Tampere (about 1.5 hours from Helsinki). It was hard fought, and could easily have gone either way, but the Ilves scraped out the 1-0 win. (Unfortunately, the refs missed a backhand goal by Nick Wert halfway through the game that would have tied the contest.) Tim Osifchok was in goal for the Hawks, and he received the Hawks' game MVP award.
With only four hours between start times, neither Hawks team had much time to dwell on the early games. After a quick lunch, which was provided for all players at the rink, it was pretty much time to put on the equipment again. The 4:00 p.m. game featured the Gibson team against HFK--the club whose A team had been so interested in fighting rather than playing against the Cappo team the day before. The HFK AA team proved to be no different (and in fact sported a few of the same players), in a game that was rough-and-tumble with emotions running high. It was with both relief and joy, given the obnoxiousness of the HFK team, that the Hawks pulled out a 4-3 win, with goals by Bobby Gibson, Matthias Chernitsky, Brendan George, and Everhett Grimes. Brendan George was again named the Hawks MVP for the game.
The final Hawks game of the day, at 6:00 p.m., featured the Cappo team against the Viikingit A squad--and saw the return of Albert Bleznak to the ice after the Porvoo Toe Incident. The game was tight, but the Hawks played their hearts out, and ended on top, 3-1. DJ Sucher had two goals for the Hawks, and Cal Bibeau added one. DJ was named the game MVP for the Hawks.
At the end of the round robin, each Hawks team stood at 2-1, making them each the second seed in their division. This meant that the Gibson team would play the Vikings again the next morning in the semifinals--and the Cappo team would face the nasty HFK team one more time.
No comments:
Post a Comment