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.
Four games into the regular season, and the Flin Flon Bombers are the only undefeated team in the SJHL. The Bombers tied the Humboldt Broncos on Friday, and then knocked off the defending Royal Bank Cup champs with a wild victory on Saturday. It was Humboldt's first loss of the season. The Notre Dame Hounds still haven't lost a game in regulation time, but have come up short in two overtime contests. The Bombers have three ties and one win, and currently sit in third place in the Dodge Conference. Although it is early in the season, a win over the defending champions will do a mile of good to restore confidence in the young Bomber squad. In Friday's contest, the Bombers drew first blood as Joey Moggach scored on the power play just 43 seconds into the game. Craig Parks and Andrew Skrabek assisted. Jeremy McKibbon scored the only goal of the second period for Humboldt at 12:19, and the game was tied after 40 minutes of play. Six goals were scored in the third period. Simon Nadeau gave Humboldt the lead just 20 seconds into the frame as he put home a rolling puck past goaltender Troy Ciernia, who played amazing in the first two periods. Tyler Stinton netted his first goal of the season to tie the game for Flin Flon at 1:54. With two Bruins draped on his back, Stinton shook them both and waited for goalie Alex Gagnon to drop before putting the puck in unassisted. Andrew Skrabek's wrist shot from inside the blueline fooled Gagnon during four-on-four play at 4:07 to give the Bombers a 3-2 lead, with Conrad Wilgenbusch assisting. Humboldt's Kris Kasper converted Mark Bradshaw's pass in front at 5:26 on a power play to tie the game. Stewart Sjoberg's slapper from the right side beat Gagnon shorthanded, with assists going to Derek Blais and Conrad Wilgenbusch to give the Bombers a 4-3 lead at 5:49, but Kevin Duchaine evened the score at 11:38 of regulation. With 17 seconds left, Joey Moggach found John Iron alone in front, but Gagnon was there with the glove save. Nothing was decided in overtime, giving the Bombers a perfect streak of three ties on the season. That streak was ended with a win on Saturday night. Andrew Skrabek scored his second goal in as many games, batting in a loose puck on his second whack at 2:57. The goal was a shorthanded marker, assisted by Craig Parks. Kris Kasper beat Derek Gallagher one-on-one and put the puck inside the post on Paul Reimer at 5:36, also shorthanded to tie the game. Skrabek scored his second of the night on a power-play at 7:38 on a slap shot from just inside the blueline, with Conrad Wilgenbusch and Jeff Lapointe assisting. Humboldt took the lead before the period was over, scoring two power-play goals. Mark Bradshaw tied the game at 11:00 and Kris Kasper put the Broncos ahead at 14:14. Joey Moggach scored the only goal of the second period, on the power play at 1:59 with Tyler Stinton and Andrew Skrabek assisting. In the third period, Derek Gallagher and John Iron put the Bombers ahead 5-3, scoring their first goals of the season. Gallagher scored on the power play at 1:29. with Tyler Stinton assisting, and Iron scored at 10:01 from Skrabek and Moggach. The Bombers got into penalty trouble after that, allowing the Broncos to tie the game. See 'Held' P.# Con't from P.# Mark Bradshaw scored at 12:18 and Simon Nadeau at 13:38, both on the power play, to make the score 5-5. The referee repaid the favour to the Bombers with four minutes to play, and Craig Parks netted his second goal of the season on the power play at 18:39, with Simon McCusker assisting. The Broncos pulled their goalie, and with 50 seconds left, Andrew Skrabek was penalized for roughing, putting the Bombers down six skaters to four. They withstood the pressure, and held on for their first win of the season. "We're definitely coming together a lot better," said goaltender Paul Reimer, who played in his second game of the season on Saturday. "We're getting better every single game." Reimer said that the key to beating Humboldt was rebounding back each time the Broncos scored. "We're having trouble keeping the leads," he said. "(Saturday night) we just bounced back. It wasn't our most disciplined game, but at the end, we backed off on some plays that could have really put us down in a bad situation." Both teams scored four power-play goals and one shorthanded goal. Over 1,000 people came out each night to watch the Bombers. Interim coach Brad Snyder was pleased with the way his team handled themselves against the defending champions. "We haven't changed much at all," said Snyder. "We have our lines back together now, and we just battled. They worked really hard and went for the net. We let them back in the game, but we tightened up defensively. They had some good scoring chances at the end, but nothing that was in front of the net. The last two minutes of the game have been killing us. The last three ties we've had, we were winning and they've come back and tied it. We didn't want that to happen again." Next action for Flin Flon will be Friday and Saturday, when the Melfort Mustangs are in town for a pair of games.9/29/2003
