Nov 04, 2012 | dgoose | 390 views
STING TRIUMPH IN THE FESTIVAL CITY...
The Sting came away with a hard fought 4-2 victory over their Northern foes from Stratford...
The Sting continued their winning ways as they all skipped church Sunday morning to travel to the "Festival City." It was all business and there was no time to visit the swans along the Avon River as the players had to be on the ice for a 10:30am start.
The game didn't start out as well as the Sting would have liked as Stratford took an early 1-0 lead. The Sting seemed to control the play throughout the early stages of the game, however, they were unsuccessful in manufacturing any sort of offence. The Sting finally managed to find the back of the net in the second period as Kaleb Zeytinoglu scored an unassisted goal to tie things up. Unfortunately, Stratford managed to re-take the lead near the end of the second period and the Stratford Warriors took a 2-1 lead going into the third.
The Sting had a hard time getting any traction on the scoreboard as they were burdened with penalties. To their credit, the players didn't let this take them out of the game despite the fact that they disagreed with the calls. The players perservered and continued their grinding offence which finally began paying off as the game moved on.
Between the second and third period, Coach Schaefer instructed the players to keep doing what they were doing which was all they needed to hear. The Sting finally began finding the back of the net.
The first goal of the period came from the stick of Evan Trigatti who reached out an grabbed a nice pass from Tyler Talbot-Ellis before putting it in the net.
Next up was Captain Cole Goossens who helped guide a point shot from Damon Skinn-Wai past the netminder for the go-ahead goal.
The Sting were then short-handed killing a penalty when the duo of Goossens and Talbot-Ellis put on an impressive display of penalty killing. Due to their aggressive play, Cole Goossens managed to send himself on a break-away but was unsuccessful in his attempt to put the puck through the goalies chest pad. The Warriors collected the puck and tried to take it back up the ice, however, Talbot-Ellis would have non of this. The "Honey Badger" hunted down the puck carrier with some impressive back-checking which caused a turn over sending Cole Goossens on another one-on-one with the goalie. Goossens changed his strategy, and avoided the chest pad which seemed to be heavily armoured on his first attempt. This time, Goossens fired a rocket to the top corner giving the Sting the insurance they needed to ride out the win.
Cameron Stevens picked up the win in net, bailing out the defence on a couple of occasions after some positional breakdowns.
The "Players of the Game" were Colin Zimmer and Evan Trigatti who were up to the pre-game coaches challenge. Coach Schaefer had challenged the wingers to pick up their intensity and aggressively pursue the puck.
Consideration for player of the game also went to Spencer Baillie who appears to be in a "Contract Year." Baillie's off-season conditioning has paid off as opposing players have to keep their eyes open or get run over by the freight train previously known as the "Baby Deer."
Consideration was also given to Josh D'Angela who Coach Schaefer said played his best game to date. A shout out also goes to Cole Goossens who potted two of the Sting's four goals and "Mr. Everything" Andrew Czyczurko who moved back to defence for this game and played solid.
The Sting have a busy week ahead starting with their long-time rivals the North London Nationals followed by a weekend tournament in Mooretown.
Get some rest!!!
Coach Ivan