Hawks Rule the Roost in Richmond Round Robin

South Island Thunderbirds, December 30, 2009

It was a very fitting “battle of the birds”.

Even though the final round robin game in the Richmond International Midget Tournament for both the Valley West Hawks and the South Island Thunderbirds had no significant implications for the playoff round, the two BC Major Midget League rivals put on a very good show at Minoru Arena in their third meeting of the season.  The contest started out as an outstanding goaltending duel between Nic Renyard for South Island and Kirk Thompson for Valley West but evolved into a bit of a “run and gun” shooting gallery that ended with the Hawks on top in a 5 – 2 final.

The win extends the Hawks’ win streak and completes a perfect 4 – 0 record to secure the first seed in the Kane pool of the tournament’s Elite Division.  The Thunderbirds finished 1 – 2 – 1 and ended up in fourth place in the Kane pool, just as they had in 2007 prior to their sweep of the playoff round to win the gold medal.

Both teams now move on to the playoff round, playing at 12:15 PM on Wednesday in the quarter-finals. Valley West meets the Thompson Blazers and South Island faces the defending champion San Jose Sharks.  It is now a situation where the winners advance and the losers go home but judging by the round robin scores, the tournament is really up for grabs amongst any of the final 8 teams.

The T-Birds game on Tuesday morning against the Hawks was a typical BCMML matchup with plenty of pace and closely contested play in spite of the early start time (7:15 AM).  The Hawks had the edge in the first period, outshooting the T-Birds 18 – 10 but ran in to a hot netminder in Renyard, who covered his angles superbly and always seemed to be in the right place at the right time.  The period was scoreless even after lots of end to end play.

That frenetic pace and great skating carried over to the second period, which was one that saw the T-Birds step up their level of play to more than match the Hawks.  While Thompson held the fort for the first 24 shots fired by the T-Birds, the South Island finally got on the board first at the 9 minute mark of the middle frame.  Garett Kemmler played the puck up to Justin Polischuk who chipped the puck past one defender at his own blue line, then streaked into the Hawks’ end.  As a second defender closed the gap, Justin fired a laser wrist shot from the top of the left face-off circle over Thompson’s glove for his 7^th goal  of the season.

The Hawks quickly erased that lead at 10:05 when Austin Plevy worked the puck back to defenceman Brodie Serka  off a face-off and Plevy hit a huge slap shot that found the top left corner over Renyard’s blocker to tie the game at one goal apiece.  That first Hawks' goal came on their 29th shot at the T-Birds' net.

At 13:15, South Island struck again.  This time, Cody Allison did some good work to create a turnover at the hash marks along the side boards in the Hawks’ end and got the puck down to big Dayne Ellison in the corner.  Ellison eluded one defender and walked off the boards, then fired a hard wrist shot from in close that squeezed through Thompson to restore the T-Birds’ lead.

Again, however, the lead was short-lived as the Hawks’ Colton Mackie scored on the next shift with a wrist shot from the left face-off circle that snuck just inside the right post.  Then with just 2:27 remaining in the period, Mason Blacklock gave Valley West its first lead, jamming his own rebound past Renyard after being left all alone in front of the net.

The third period started badly for the Birds as on the first shift, the Hawks’ Austin Plevy intercepted a pass behind the South Island net, came out in front and then banked the puck in off a T-Bird defender’s stick.  At 6:12 of the period, the Hawks put the game pretty much out of reach with another lucky bounce.  Daniel Lee brought the puck into the South Island zone on a 3 on 2 rush and fired a shot that Renyard easily kicked out.  Unfortunately, he kicked it directly onto the skate of one of the two T-Bird defenders and it caromed back past Renyard to make the score 5 – 2, which is how the game ended.

In the game’s last 10 minutes, the Birds showed a little frustration and took three minor penalties that kept Valley West on the power play for much of the remaining time and precluded any serious hopes of a comeback this day.

So after splitting their first two regular season games, the Hawks earned the bragging rights in this third meeting.  The two teams will face each other again in the middle of January when they play a weekend doubleheader in Kelowna as part of the BCMML’s All-Star weekend.  They could also meet again in the finals of this event.   Familiarity does tend to breed contempt in this sport so whenever they hook up again, it is a pretty safe bet that feathers will fly.