FTLComm - Tisdale - February 21, 2000

The semi-final round of the Senior Pasquia Hockey league got underway last night with the Ramblers meeting the Nipawin Knights in the first of a best of seven series. At the start of the third period things were even in a three all tie. Both teams were skating hard and putting excellent pressure on their opposition. The Ramblers had control of the first half of the third period, in fact much of the third period was played in the Nipawin end. But two

were making the game a stalemate. Curtis Parkinson, Nipawin's goalie for this game can be utterly brilliant and Sunday night he was shining. The second factor was Nipawin's defence.

In the picture above and the one below you can see the Tisdale team fluttering around the Nipawin goal but the puck was not going in the net. Tisdale relies on spark plugs on each of its forward lines to get those goals. Chad Olson, Scott Kearns, Shane Magnus each are play makers on their lines and they in turn rely upon the whiz kids to move the puck into position and be ready to receive those passes that result in goals.

The Whiz kids, headed by the league's top scorer, Scott Homstol and on other lines Ryan Turcotte and Jordan Spagrud can simply out skate, out move and out play every one else in the league. Well that was the case in the regular season but Murray Harrower, Mike Weatherald, Curtis Wanamaker and Nipawin captain Randall Kerluke make up the core of the Knight's defensive squad

and they have solved the problem of dealing with Tisdale's Whiz kids. Murray Harrower simply would not let the agile

and unpredictable Scott Homstol any room in the Nipawin zone, with or without the puck Murray kept Scott on the way down or getting up from the ice for the whole third period. It was the same for Scott Kearns who likes to move in to position to get a pass out in front and Nipawin's defence kept him bouncing off the boards. The picture on the right is the sturdy Nipawin veteran Murray Harrower who almost single handedly kept Scott Homstol from getting into position. Five goals in the first period Tisdale put in all three of its goals as Jeff Farber got the first one, Chad Olson the

second and Ryan Turcotte the third with Jordan Spagrud getting two assists, Ryan one, Pete McAvoy another and the Knights kept Scott Homstol to a single assist. Brad Farber made an assist on goal three.

Nipawin put two goals in the net in the first period, one by defenseman Mike Weatherald and the other by Graham Comfort, with assists from Scott Goillet, Shannon Appernmaier, and Ken Foy. The second period was pretty empty with

Nipawin getting a single goal from Shannon Appenmaier and he was assistted by Jeff Chorney and Scott Goillet. The Third period was actually almost all Tisdale until 11:38 left when Tisdale scored on themselves. Jon Hamlin had had a pretty quiet period with little pressure from Nipawin as they were busy in their own end. With Tisdale short handed and the usual penalty killing squad keeping the puck in Nipawin's end a stray shot got the puck in behind the net. Jon moved back to handle it and clear it, there was a moment of hesitation and then he shot, the puck bounced off one of his players shin pads into the net and it was a 4 - 3 game. Marc Rio entered the game in net and Tisdale continued hammering away at the great Nipawin defense. With a minute left they went to six attackers. Three tries from the Nipawin end missed the open net then Ken Foy broke lose and the game ended with Nipawin winning the first one 5 - 3. Tonight the game is in Nipawin then on Wednesday night they will be back here to sort things out in game three. This is going to be a great series. Tisdale has to figure out what to do with Harrower and his guys and things will change dramatically. By the way there were on seven penalties for each team in last night's game all minors with one exception, Curtis Wanamaker who had picked up two minors went on to be granted a misconduct. (Curtis (20) is seen closest to the camera in the picture above) Meanwhile Friday night Birch Hills beat Kinistino 7 - 5 and they play tomorrow night. Stay tuned this is going to be good.