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.
The Flin Flon Bombers were on the wrong end of a tight-checking game. An uncontrolled error and poor line change cost the Bombers two goals in a 3-0 loss to the Notre Dame Hounds. The Whitney Forum wasn't Bomber friendly during Friday's loss that featured few scoring chances. Missed opportunities stood out as the Hounds cashed in. "I look at two of their three goals, one was a power play goal. There's two seconds left on their power play, we got caught on a bad line change by our defense and they scored on a breakaway," Bombers coach-GM Doug Stokes explained. "We went on our power-play, they got a short-handed goal. We made a pass, and an unfortunate break, it jumped over (Bradyn) McCullough's stick and they ended up with another breakaway." The Hounds went 1-1 on the power play while the Bombers were 0-6. The closest stat on this game were the shots as the Bombers outshot their opponent 28-26. Blake Bashor earned the shutout, while Zane Kalemba made 23 saves. The Hounds constantly pressured the Bombers and the home team equaled the pressure as the game progressed, but it seemed the harder they tried, the worse it got with no reward. Richard Dupre missed a wide open cage and Mackenzie Groenewegen had a chance of his own. In the third period, Kenton Staines had a chance 1-on-1 with Bashor kicking the shot aside. "When you get in games where both teams are playing well without the puck and chances are at a minimum, you got to score when you get them and we didn't score on the good chances that we had," Stokes said. Bombers' forward Dalton Pajak spoke highly of the Hounds. "They got some of the best d-man in the league, and they're really good positionally and pretty quick so it's pretty frustrating to play against them," he said. Pajak didn't feel the team was outworked, but came up short. "I think we had a couple chances there where we could have buried but just didn't," Pajak explained. The forechecking pressure of the Hounds was felt by defenseman Evan Smith. "They came hard every shift and we just had to get our head up to get our feet moving and move the puck real quick because they were always on top of us," Smith explained after the game. "There's not too many teams in the league that are always coming and they have four lines going all the time." The Bombers look to rebound as they begin a three-game road trip today in Melfort, then play Kindersley on Friday and Battlefords' on Saturday.
