Kincardine Presto Crest Peewee LL travelled to Godercih to take on Goderich LL1 in a Saturday afternoon game on 29Jan2011. With only two games remaining on the regular schedule, time to notch a win on the year was beginning to run out. Kincardine’s goal in this game was to sustain a high level of effort for all three periods of the game - something that has only been done once in all other outings. The result of that previous effort was a draw with BCH.
Photo courtesy of Kyle Watson.
From the first face-off, the play ended up in Kincardine’s end. Alex P. made an early save with the puck being cleared into the corner. Hogan got it around the boards up to Josh, who took the hit but still managed to chip the puck out over the blue-line. Owen, providing support, picked up the puck, taking it deep into Goderich’s end on a 2-on-1. He drew the Goderich defender over and then laid a perfect pass to Brady in front of the net. Brady’s first shot was stopped, but he charged hard for his rebound and slid it by the Goderich goalie. With just 38 seconds gone in the game, Kincardine was up 1-0! The score held until mid-way through the period when Goderich pulled even with a nice shot from the slot. However, Kincardine was still firing on all cylinders, and continued to work hard - attacking the puck and maintaining strong positional play defensively. The hard work finally played off when Brady and Josh combined to get the puck over to Cameron in the high slot who fired a low wrist shot that found the corner to give Kincardine back the lead with 2 minutes left in the first. Kincardine took the 2-1 lead into the second period.
Early in the second period, Alex F. did his Bobby Orr impersonation, taking the puck coast to coast and finishing with wrist shot just under the bar on the glove side to give Kincardine a 3-1 lead. All the boys continued to work hard. Defensively, Brendan made sure to back his partner up and took time to look up the ice and make good clearing passes. Martin lined up several Goderich players, making good contact to allow Kincardine puck possession. Austin, Sam and Ryan played their points well, preventing shots at net and making sure that the puck cleared the Kincardine zone. With 7 minutes left in the period, Kincardine made a defensive mistake, leaving a Goderich player open in the slot, resulting in another goal. Play continued back and forth, with both teams getting chances but being shutdown by good defense and goaltending. Kincardine took a 3-2 lead into the second period break.
The team was really pumped during the intermission, but the game was not yet over. The coaching staff re-focused the team on the job to be done. Kincardine came out flying again in the third. Jacob and JD both had rushes up the ice. Michael worked hard to get back in the play back-checking to take away Goderich chances. Alex P. made an amazing stop at the side of the net and while lying down made two more stops to keep the Kincardine lead. With a minute and a half left, Goderich pulled their goalie to try and even up the game. Owen managed to get the puck out of Kinardine’s end into the Goderich end with about 40 seconds left. Ferocious forechecking by Brady, Josh and Owen kept the puck in Goderich’s end. Alex F. and Hogan were able to keep the puck from crossing the blue-line to ensured Kincardine’s first victory of the season, the result of three periods of excellent sustained effort.