Battleford Barons Out Shoot and Score, Midget Ramblers

FTLComm - Tisdale - Sunday, January 6, 2002

Saturday late afternoon the Centre 4 League second place team, the Battleford Barons were on the ice in Tisdale against the fifth place Tisdale "AA" Midget Ramblers. It has been three weeks since the Barons last played a hockey game and during that lay off they had one practice so they looked and acted a bit lost for the first nineteen minutes of the game. The Barons have a tradition of being a big team with a solid reputation of hard hitting and aggressive play year after year. This version of the Barons looked pretty slow facing the agile and quick, but much smaller Tisdale Ramblers. the Ramblers are good puck handlers and fast skaters but the long arms and holding on style of play used by Battleford

made the first period an even but uneventful contest with only a couple of penalties. With forty-five seconds left in the first period the Barons began to recall what hockey was about and put in a scrambled goal (above right in this blurred frame). Immediately after the puck was dropped after their first goal (on the right) the Barons repeated the process making a two to nothing hockey game. The Ramblers play with balanced lines evening out their lines but leaving themselves without strength. A good defensive strategy but unlikely to win them many games.

With a second left in the clock the Barons who had at last got the hang of things put in goal number three (right) and retired to the dressing room at the end of the first period with a three nothing lead. Fifteen minutes later both teams returned to the ice to skate back and forth down the ice for another sixteen minutes of play. The Barons hanging on for dear life to the skating Ramblers and the Ramblers unable to get effective plays together. Puck handlers with no one to pass to and positional players waiting for passes that never made it to

them. The at 4:06 in the second period with both teams wandering around the neutral zone. The Ramblers were short handed and the puck got on Gavin Mievre's stick and he was gone with a break to the left then moving to the right he took Baron goalie Mitch Hawtin off to the side the puck popped up over Hawtin's shoulder and Tisdale had their first goal of the game (right). This seemed to jog the memory of the Barons as they really began skating and were able to hold the puck in the Rambler zone. Goalie Gord Mamer was doing his best but for a while it was like facing a black snowstorm. He was

fighting a losing battle as the Barons kept peppering the Rambler net and made it a four to one hockey game only seconds after Mievre's break away goal (right). The Ramblers go without a back up and it is easy to see why. Gord Mamer has a unflustered demeanor and can flatten out the ruffles of pressure by sticking to his position and maintaining a reign on his emotions. The Barons now began to play hockey and the Ramblers seemed to be playing shorted handed even with five skaters

on the ice as the Barons took the end of the second period and made it their time. This, the fifth Baron goal (right) came from a combination play as a clean shot zipped over Mamer's shoulder and into the top right corner of the net. The apparent short handed play was being produced as the Ramblers were moving two players into the neutral zone to produce a quick break away but left defense to three players facing four big Barons.

The last goal of the second period by the Barons (right) was an odd one as the Barons came into the zone the player in the right hand centre of this picture flipped the puck up in a sort of pop fly that Gord Mamer likely never saw even as it floated down and dropped into the net behind him making it six to one. Once again amnesia seemed to settle on the Barons who had a comfortable lead as they worked their way along with both hands full. One hand on their sticks and the other clutching a Tisdale player. The referee kept the game moving but seemed to disregard the interference plays and most high sticking. At one point in the second he was

hit in the neck himself by a high stick and had to whistle play down as he knelt on the ice recovering from the blow. Amazingly the offending player did not get a penalty for high sticking the ref. a few minutes later play resumed. Despite the referees disregard for holding and hooking it was a clean even handed game with few retaliations and devoid of the injury producing play often seen in Midget games.

But before period two ended the puck got on Gavin Mievre's stick once more and he repeated his first goal with another break away play mirroring the moves on his first rush and Baron goalie Mitch Hawtin getting caught for a second time by the same simple deak by the nibble Mievre. (right) It was no surprise that the third period was less than exciting as the Barons went through the motions and the Ramblers remained unable to put their resources together. It must be enormously frustrating for the Midget Ramblers to have the kind of speed and talent they have but be unable to use those players effectively. We had to sit through another fifteen minutes of back and forth hockey before

Dylan White and Jonathon Jones put together a picture perfect combination play to score the game's last goal as the game ended six to three, Barons. For his individual efforts FTLComm scored Gavin Mievre as the games third star, Mitch Hawtin, the Baron's goalie was the second star for having made some spectacular saves and the Baron's most effective player was names the first star, defense man Tim Desjarais. Come play-off time these big guys are going to be hard to beat. With just a little bit more mobility and improved shooting accuracy the Barons will be an awesome hockey team.

There was a small but loyal set of fans out for the Ramblers with only five or six Battleford supporters on the bus to back up their team making for a pretty quiet game in the RecPlex. For the Ramblers, with their gold mine of talent and superior skating it just remains a matter of time until they begin to put things together and everyone is confident that they can do that before the play-off season begins. With experienced players who have seen the best of their peers in the province in other years of provincial play we can expect the Ramblers to get those passes clicking and resume their rightful role as one of the provinces best hockey teams.

Timothy W. Shire

Play by play video tape of this game is available from Faster Than Light Communications.