The contest held in the Freezer Vault, AKA the Bitter Barn on Barlow saw Bear use its ample insulation to their advantage as Fraser River couldn’t shake off the hoarfrost in the 6-4 Communicator win. The game featured quite a few firsts as GM’s Captain (Cowboy) Royle wore a full length shearling warm up coat to ensure no random frost cracks infiltrated his ample paraphernalia. Another first was a Hat trick by Jimmie (Snoopy) Sales who was on the receiving end of several saucer passes off the stick of Mike (The Maestro) Enemark who played out for a change of pace. Also in a giving mood were Richard (The Commish) Lindstrom and Troy (The Roadrunner) McMillan who each dished out three assists.
The teeter-totter contest could’ve gone either way until the video replay judge confirmed the puck had crossed the line on one of Snoopy’s tallies. Despite the efforts of Chad (The Comet) Swanson who had a pair and added an assist, this seemed to break the brittle Fraser River resolve and it was all upstream after that.
Also scoring for the GM Men were a couple of their heavy duty fleet as Stu (Moose) Taylor with his third and Brian (The Bull) Inwood with his first of the campaign crashed the net with reckless abandon.
The other contest in balmy rink 2 also required video replay as Serenity blew several leads before settling for a 4-4 draw with Blue Collar.
The game was definitely a tale of two halves as Serenity had BCS on the ropes in the penultimate stanza thanks to tallies by Ray (My knackers’ are) Friesen who rainbowed one in and (Curious) George Ryan who was jolly on the spot after a terrible Blue Collar turnover.
The TSN turning point came early in the final period when the Builders couldn’t find the final nail on a two-man advantage.
This allowed Bob (The Warrior) Keen to rocket one off the post, off the tender and off the other post which was too much for the lone referee to comprehend so he called it a goal.
This ruling enraged the normally placid Serenity crew and after an unassisted beauty by Nathan (The Sniper) Strand who displayed more moves than Jagger and a one-time howitzer by George “Popeye” Paul it was BCS who had the lead.
The seesaw wasn’t done by any means as the Builders surged back in front thanks to a time zone breaking deke by (BIG) Bob Merta and a top shelf missile from Dale (Bazooka) Bubela put them back in front.
The lead was shorter than a Kardashian marriage however, as Todd (The Body) Gryshuck chipped in the equalizer to earn BCS’s third point in three January contests.
Steve Dodge is a defensive winger with Serenity Builders and an Observer contributor.
