After a 27-day stretch without a home game the Sicamous Eagles hosted the Castlegar Rebels in a game at the Sicamous and District Rec Centre on Friday, Nov. 30. The contest in front of the home crowd offered edge-of-your-seat action with an outcome decided in the final minute.
The Eagles’ Aaron Plessis scored early but the Rebels tied it up shortly thereafter. A second Rebels goal from Colby Winia left the visitors with a lead at the end of the opening period.
Josh Olson solved the Rebels’ netminder early in the second frame to tie it up at two goals apiece. Another early period goal from Cade McNeil of the Rebels restored the Castlegar lead— the score remained unchanged for the rest of the period.
The Rebels’ lead grew with a goal from Erik Nystrom six minutes into the final period.
Jordan Sheasgreen scored a minute later to keep the Eagles in the game and Dallas Stewart followed up with a game-tying goal shortly before the halfway mark of the third period.
The game clock ticked down and the score remained tied until late in the period. With two minutes to go, Nicholas Cossa of the Eagles was sent to the penalty box on a holding call leaving the Eagles to try to hold off the Rebels until the end of regulation time.
With 53 seconds left to play Tristan Jones scored for the Rebels assisted by Kole Halvorson and Hunter Maximnuk.
The Eagles pulled Cole Steinke from between the pipes in order to get an extra skater for the final minute of play but they were unable to score a tying goal before the final buzzer sounded.
After taking in some Sicamous community spirit carrying the team banner or riding on floats in the Christmas Light Up parade on Saturday night, the Eagles hit the road to play against their divisional rivals the 100 Mile House Wranglers. The Wranglers sit one position ahead of the Sicamous squad in the Doug Birks Division of the KIJHL’s Okanagan/Shuswap Conference.
The Sunday-night match-up in 100 Mile House kicked off with the home team scoring shortly after the halfway point of the opening period.
The Eagles denied the Wranglers momentum going into the middle period with some final seconds heroics from Cossa who dashed for the net unassisted and fired the puck in with four seconds on the clock.
With Sean Thornton sitting in the penalty box for tripping up a Wranglers player, the home team rallied to restore their lead. The Eagles tied the game back up off the stick of David Cloutier but in the final minute of the second period, the Wranglers pulled ahead.
Early in the final period, Eagles D-Man Jacob Chafe was sent packing by the referees after a kneeing call and a game misconduct.
Later in the period the Wranglers got themselves in penalty trouble with a pair of interference penalties just over a minute apart.
Just after the end of the two-man advantage Justin Hodgson scored to tie the game. Regulation time ended in a tie. After an inconclusive first overtime period and with only a minute to go in the second, Cloutier got the pass from Sean Thornton and tallied up his second goal of the night to win the game.
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