The Jasper Atom Bears haven’t played since late January, and now the playoffs are upon them.
As the regular season wound down, the Bears were meant to play against Edson, but poor weather postponed and eventually cancelled, this matchup, leaving the Bears in firm possession of first place in the league, but without a league challenge for well over a month.
So it was with some anxiety that Coach Jim Koss went into the Bears first playoff game last Sunday against these same Edson opponents—a team that had bolstered its roster with a hot-shot callup from the Novice Ranks.
Period one was all about defense. Forwards on both teams were tentative at best, and predictably rusty, but the netminders at both ends of the ice were sharp. For Jasper this was Donovan Fawcett who half way through the period was tested by Edson’s finest, and stood tall. The Jasper defense, led by Jacob Bartziokas and Tanner Carleton, was also solid, holding the blueline and stifling Edson rushes.
The first 20 ended scoreless, but both teams were waking up and the fans could sense that goals were on the way.
Sure enough, three minutes into the second period the inevitable happened: Jasper’s Sebastian Golla ripped a wrister off the Edson goalie’s pads and Johnny-on-the-spot Dylan Dekker buried the rebound to break the ice and give Jasper a one goal lead.
The Golla-Dekker combination turned out to be key in Jasper’s offense on Sunday, feeding off the grinding offense provided by linemate Baden Koss.
Edson would equalize half-way through the period and then take the lead four minutes later when the Bears were unable to clear the puck from their zone. This silenced the Jasper fans and lent credence to Coach Koss’ fears that his untested side might be suffering from overconfidence and a lack of game-speed ice-time as of late.
But the kids didn’t give up. The Lucas Oeggerli, Nash Hilworth and Dylan Skinner line was effective in keeping the puck deep, and just two minutes after Edson pulled ahead, Dekker and Golla combined again for Dekker’s second of the game to bring Jasper even. Before the second period would end, Dekker would complete his natural hattrick by poking in a loose puck in the crease to give Jasper a 3–2 lead heading into the third.
The final 20 minutes was shut-down time for netminder Fawcett, while his brother, Dexter, paired on the blueline with Michael Hayashi, kept the aggressive Edson forwards at bay. At the same time, Golla fired one in off a faceoff win to give
Jasper a two goal cushion and iced that cake with a Peter Hayashi-esque goal from in-tight and an impossible angle to end any hopes of an Edson comeback.
The final score was 5–2 for Jasper.
Playoffs follow a two game, total goals format in Sturgeon Pembina, so next weekend, Edson will travel to Jasper for game two and will be trying to dig out of its three goal hole. Jasper will be working hard to ensure that doesn’t happen.
This will all shake out next Saturday at 1:30 pm in the Jasper Arena. Check the schedule and I’ll see you in the stands.
John Wilmshurst
Special to the Fitzhugh
