A big road win, a hat-trick and a goalie fight - the Flin Flon Bombers' Saturday night game against Weyburn had it all.
The maroon and white continued a successful southern road trip with a 6-3 win over the Red Wings, putting the team at 2-0-1 through three games away from home.
While Weyburn's Cade Kowalski and Carson Scheschuk got the Red Wings a 2-0 lead after 20 minutes, the Bombers owned the final two periods. Chrystopher Collin got the ball rolling three minutes into the second period, cutting the Weyburn lead in half.
After that, Daylan Marchi put in work, scoring both the tying and go-ahead goal midway through the period. Nate Hooper added his fourth goal of the year moments before the end of the period - a goal that would turn out to be the game-winner.
Vincent Nardone kept the goal train a-rolling in the third period, scoring the Bombers' fifth goal in a row. Sven Schefer scored to stop the bleeding for Weyburn late in the third, but Marchi found the net one more time in the last minute, giving him a hat-trick and 10 goals on the season.
While the win would be satisfying for Bomber fans, arguably the real fun took place in the final thirty seconds of the game, when both teams took a turn into old-time, fight-filled hockey.
First, Bomber Vaughan Bamford and Scheschuk began to fight with only 17 seconds remaining. Shortly after, the teams went into a full-on brawl, with several players being ejected. The cherry on top - a goalie fight between Bomber netminder Pierce Diamond and Weyburn's Riley Lamb.
All told, the Bombers and Red Wings combined for a whopping 238 penalty minutes, most of which were assessed late.
Diamond earned the win after a 25 save performance, while Lamb stayed in for the whole game, making 39 stops.
The Bombers have handled a typically gruelling southern road trip with ease, winning two of three games so far and earning five of a possible six points so far. After starting the run with a 3-2 shootout loss against the Humboldt Broncos, the Bombers topped Notre Dame 4-1 on Thursday. The team will end the road trip with a game in Estevan Sunday night, before coming home for four straight home games.
Flin Flon's Brandson Hein currently leads the SJHL in goals and points, having scored 12 times and gathered 24 points in only 13 games. Caleb Moretz sits in third places with 11 goals and 21 points in 12 games, while defenceman Calvon Boots has a stranglehold on the league's assist lead with 17 assists in 13 games - five more than any other player.
Diamond owns the best goalie stats of any SJHL goalie with 10 games played or more so far, with a goals-against-average of 2.27 and a .925 save percentage.
