The Border Bruins pulled off a strong win on Saturday at the Foundation Builder’s game at Jack Goddard Memorial Arena. The Bruins, who were led by a hat-trick from local player Brandon Savaia, won the game 6-3 over the Spokane Braves. Before the start of the game, the Bruins honoured the 1973-74 Bruins management and players who were divisional champions that year.
The game was marred by a second period which featured several fights and several game misconducts handed out to brawling players. Receiving game misconducts for the Bruins were Garret Brisebois, Trey Mason, Nicky Leeder, Connor Manegre, Shayne Pluto and Jordan Robertson.
Tyler Fyfe opened up the scoring at 12:49 of the first period, assisted by Logan Casavant and Bryson Yee. The Braves responded a short time later with a short-handed marker from Garrett Graham. The Bruins regained the lead with 27 seconds left in the first with a power play marker from Yee (assisted by Mason and goalie Anthony Galliart).
In between the fights in the second period the Bruins scored two more goals, by Leeder and Savaia with his first, to go up by a commanding 4-1 lead.
The teams exchanged goals in the third with Austin Breen and Kyle Donaldson scoring for Spokane, while Savaia picked up his second and third goals for Grand Forks to secure the win.
The Bruins are back on home ice this Saturday with a game against the high octane Kimberley Dynamiters. The Nitros lead the Eddie Mountain division and the entire KIJHL with a 28-win, 4-loss, 4-overtime loss record for 60 points. There high-scoring line-up features four of the top 10 scorers in the league with Jared March (50 points/2nd), Eric Buckley (50 points/2nd), Jason Richter (49 points/5th) and Jordan Busch (49 points/5th).
On Sunday, Grand Forks travels to Castlegar to play the second place Rebels.
