By James Brohm
The Bombers held their second annual Hockey Fights Cancer game at the Hangar on Saturday night. The real winner was local Cancer care as the Bombers and the Sioux Lookout Rotary Club teamed up to donate $5000 to the Sioux Lookout Meno Ya Win Health Centre Foundation. The money was raise through the sale of game-worn jerseys, two auctioned jerseys signed by the entire teams and proceeds from the night’s 50/50 draw. 369 fans came out to support the team and this very worthy cause.
The game started off with a bang with both the Bombers and Islanders coming out strong. Both Jack Osmond for the Bombers and Matthew Stephens for the Islanders were tested early and came up big for their respective teams. The games first goal didn’t come until nearly the halfway point of the first period. Connor Burke was sprung in the neutral zone with a pass by Rylen Leroux and put a shot just under the glove of Stephens for his 17th of the season. 30 seconds later, Dayvan Bull pulled the same move on a zone entry with numbers to make it 2-0 for the Bombers. Tait Howell, fighting for position in front of the Islanders’ net jump on the rebound of a Bradley Thompson point shot to give the Bomber their third goal in less than a minute. It looked as though the Bomber were going to run away with the game at this point but the Islanders calmed down and with some big saves from Stephens were able to escape the period with no further damage.
The second period was physical with both teams attempting to dominate, unfortunately it also lead to a total nine minor penalties for the two teams combined. Kenora even weathered a full two minute 5 on 3 with good deal of help from their goaltender, Stephens. At 10:16, Ty Kirk picked up a rebound after Dale Horseman beat out a potential icing and tried to jam the puck on the short side while rounding the net. His shot went off of Stephens’ should and right onto Kirk’s stick who made the game 4-0 for the Bombers. In the late stages of the period, the Islanders found the back of the net behind Osmond. While on the powerplay, Aaron Bertschinger blasted a backdoor, one-timer past Osmond to get his team on the board.
In similar fashion to the previous night, the Bombers depth allowed them to pull away in the third and seal the victory with two more goals from Blake Burke and Ty Lone. The final score was 6-1 in favour of the Bombers, who remain the top team in the league and extend their winning streak to 12 games.
Jack Osmond gave up one goal on 27 shots while Matthew Stephens was much busier in the other end facing 62 shots from the Bombers. The third star of the game was awarded to Dale Horseman III who picked up an assist on the night. The second star was Jack Osmond with his 26 save performance for the win and first star honours went to Connor Burke for his gaol and assist contribution to the victory.
The Islanders are home against the Dryden GM Ice Dogs next weekend splitting the games between Woodland Arena Friday night and the Moncrief Construction Sports Centre on Saturday. The Bombers will take their winning streak to Norwest Arena and faceoff against the number two team in the league for a two-game series against the Fighting Walleye.