Bruce Telecom Kincardine Bantam LL2 played their second playoff game in 2 days on Sunday 10Feb2013 on the road in Mildmay. Kincardine was up against the regular season first place team that had only lost 3 games all year. To say that the odds were huge would be an understatement.
Kincardine came out flying in the first period, tenaciously checking the high scoring Mildmay team, limiting them to only seven shots on goal. The flip side of the coin - Kincardine didn’t manage a single shot on net. The score was tied at zero at the end of the first.
The second period started out badly with Mildmay scoring on their first two shots of the period in a span of 9 seconds less than one minute into the period. Kincardine then withstood another barrage of shots, with Alex Pande making several outstanding saves - a reoccurring theme in this game. Kincardine then scored on their first shot of the game halfway through the second period when Justin Moulton hit Riley Cherrett with a stretch pass up the wing. Cherrett took the puck wide and fired a low shot that caught the far-side post to bring Kincardine to within one. Mildmay responded with some physical play that caused them to be shorthanded, giving Kincardine the opening they needed. Some nice passing resulted in Owen Fohkens finding the back of the net on a feed from Corbyn Fields with another assist going to Moulton. With the momentum shift, Kincardine pushed for a go-ahead goal which came a minute later when Hogan Allen shelved it from a nice cross-ice pass from Jacob Gordon with a helper going to Cherrett. Kincardine took a 3-2 lead into the second period intermission.
The third period saw Mildmay take the game to Kincardine. Once again, Pande made some fabulous saves, with some help from Moulton making a stick save on an empty net chance and Brendan Arciszewski blocking 4 shots. A high effort level kept Mildmay to the outside and out of the front of the net. Kincardine then killed off a penalty with less than two minutes to go, but got into trouble on a scramble play in front of their net just after the penalty expired. The puck squeezed out to a Mildmay player who put it in with one minute left to play to tie the game up. With 20 seconds left, Mildmay took a penalty. Kincardine got the puck deep with a couple of scoring chances that did not get converted.
In the overtime period, Kincardine still had one minute and forty seconds of power play remaining but couldn’t get on track, managing only a single shot on net. Mildmay stormed back, peppering Kincardine’s goal. Pande once again was the key that locked the door to Kincardine’s net turning away another 14 shots to preserve the well deserved 3-3 tie.