West Grey Huskies 4 – Kincardine AE Kinucks 4
Kincardine AE Kinucks 3 – West Grey Huskies 2
This weekend saw the Kincardine Atom AE Kinucks take on the West Grey Huskies in a home and away double header. Both games would be thrillers against the hard working and well organized Huskies.
Looking to generate more goals, the Kinucks would try some positional changes with Jessica Anderson moving her smooth skating style onto the forward line and Dakota Condie picking up a defensive role. It has to be said that both of these players performed more than admirably over the weekend.
In typical fashion, Saturday’s game saw the Kinucks fall a goal behind before they really got moving, kick starting their ability to create offensive chances. The highly skilled Sam MacTavish would tie things up at 1-1, with a nicely taken goal, assisted by Noah Page.
Holden Stevenson certainly had one of his best games of the season and it would be his booming shot from the blue line that enabled Brock Courtney the Kinucks second goal of the game, feeding off the rebound. Stevenson was allowed this ability to push forward against the Huskies, as he was partnered by the ever reliable defensive partner Lauren Thede.
The game would ebb and flow throughout, ending up in a 4-4 tie, and it should be mentioned that both Johnny Graham and Jared Petrie put in solid performances, in the Kincardine net. Overall the Kinucks scoring was: Sam MacTavish 2+1, Zack Eybergen 1+2, Brock Courtney 1+0; Holden Stevenson 0+1; Dakota Condie 0+1; Noah Page 0+1.
This was an enthralling game where the Kinucks showed great improvement in getting to the net, in an effort to convert their chances into goals. This was particularly demonstrated by the hard working forwards; Carson Boettinger; Aiden Berkman; David Ulak and Bailey Pierson.
The following night took the AE Kinucks to Ayton, where they would again face the West Grey Huskies. This game would prove to be a thriller for the on looking crowd. Not surprisingly for anybody that has been following this team, it wasn’t until the Kinucks were trailing 2-0 in the third that they started to apply some offensive pressure. Ironically, it was while Brock Courtney served a two minute tripping penalty and the Kinucks were on the penalty kill, when they made their goal scoring breakthrough. Zack Eybergen provided a beautiful pass to Sam MacTavish, who waited for the goalie to make a move, before he fired his shot top shelf, where they keep the cookie jar!! At 2-1 it was game on!
Kincardine’s pressure continued to mount with Jessie Anderson steaming through the Huskies defence, like the ‘Kincardine Express’, only to be denied by the Huskies goalie. Next would be Zack ‘The Cannon’ Eybergen who fired a missile, inches wide of the right post!
The game tying goal was getting ever closer. This time it would be defenseman Cam Fletcher who burst through the Huskies back line. Fletcher was hauled down and he slid toward the West Grey net. The ensuing scramble saw Noah Page expertly finish his chance and the game was tied at 2!
Kincardine had the momentum and it wasn’t long before Noah Page would score again, from a David Ulak assist. The Kinucks had the 3-2 lead!
Kincardine had to hold onto their slender lead for the final three minutes. Caydence Gibson and Tomas Nancekivell had both been outstanding throughout and the Kinucks relied upon their defensive skills to see them through a large amount of the closing stages.
By this point, the atmosphere was electric, with the Huskies goalie pulled for an extra skater. However as they say, you should always keep the best ‘til last. In this instance it was time for the Jared Petrie show! In the final thirty seconds he pulled off two saves that would have to be described as miraculous. These saves guaranteed the Kinucks victory and second place in the league standings. The saves also resulted in a hardest working player award for the excellent Petrie.
With coaches Doug MacTavish and Chris Wainwright unavailable, while they completed mandatory coaching courses. Assistant Coach Randy Gibson had to take the lead with a somewhat ‘make shift’ bench. Gibson was thrilled with both the effort and results from these players. “I hope that both Doug and Chris learned a lot at their weekend of training. With results like this, it’s starting to look like we don’t really need them” Gibson said, jokingly.