The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
It took two starts for Flin Flon Bombers rookie goalie Calvin Bartel to earn his first SJHL victory. He did it in fine fashion too as he stopped 38 of 39 shots as the Bombers defeated the Kindersley Klippers 5-1 at the Whitney Forum on Friday night. The lone Klippers goal by Brett Leedahl, beat Bartel, who was caught cheating. "I cheated to see the puck and I found it right when he was releasing it and when I cheated, I gave him that side of the net and he put it in there," the Bombers goalie explained. That goal came with the Bombers leading 2-0 with 10:34 on the clock. They would regain their two-goal lead when Jared Kissick potted his first of the season as he was left alone in the slot and made no mistake. His goal would be followed by two empty-netters to seal the Klippers' fate. See P.# Con't from P.# Despite losing the shutout, the rookie goalie wasn't disappointed about it. "As long as we win right now, that's what's important for me," Bartel said. It also felt good for him to get that first win out of the way, as well as his nerves. "I think I put too much pressure on myself," Bartel said. "I guess Doug (Stokes) says I have high credentials or something and everybody is thinking that and then I put the pressure on myself." Stokes, Bombers coach-GM, felt the goaltending in the game was by far the best they have received. "That's the Calvin Bartel that we watched last year, that's the Calvin Bartel that has all the acclamation stuff. He's a quality goaltender and we seen that tonight." While the puck stopper came up big, so did the Bombers offence. That was an area of concern among some of the players and the coaching staff. Reid MacLeod opened the scoring with his second of the season, while Dennis Kubat made it 2-0, with his first of two in the game, and second of the season, when Pierre-Luc Boucher made a beautiful play as he made a pass through the goal mouth and all Kubat had to do was touch it. See P.# Con't from P.# "Boucher there has got lots of skill," Kubat said. "You should see on that one pass he gave me. All that I had to do was finish it." "I thought that one goal there he just had tremendous hands," said Stokes. "That's why we inserted him in the lineup. We thought offensively he might be able to do some things for us and he did. "That was our best line tonight," he said. "I thought they played very well together. You got a little bit of everything there. You got a pretty creative guy, and smart guy in the middle (Kubat), pretty slicked hand guy on the outside there in (Pierre) Luc Boucher. And Reid MacLeod is just a straight forward guy that plays hard in all small areas." That trio gave the Klippers problems as they could have had more goals if not for the play of goalie Pier Louis Nadeau. When Boucher played a shift with fellow Frenchman Tommy Castonguay, they had the fans 'ooing' in their seats. The Bombers started the game strong with solid forechecking and never let the Klippers gain momentum. Still, despite the result, Stokes felt his team played "okay." "Not as consistent as I thought the other night," Stokes explained. "We were much more consistent for 60 minutes and today I thought we were sporadic at times." The Bombers coach also felt his team didn't play defence well. In the previous two games they allowed under 30 shots. This time they were kept to that with 22. "I didn't think our defence played was very structured at all," Stokes said. "In all reality, we haven't had time to cover a whole lot of things. That's an area where we're going to have to be better in." Kubat felt the team just got the lucky breaks and bounces. "Bartel played an unreal game so he gave us a chance to win and we buried our chances this game."
