At the end of the Bears’ game versus Fox Creek on Saturday, Oilers great Ryan Smyth—who was in Jasper coaching his son’s Novice team—came into the dressing room to congratulate the Jasper kids on their fantastic performance.
Throughout Smyth’s time as an Oiler, Northlands Coliseum—AKA Rexall Place—was known as “the library”. Not due to its learned occupants, but because the fans were so very quiet. They’ve got nothin’ on Jasper. Our barn has a real library, and as someone who spends quality time both watching hockey and browsing through the stacks, I appreciate that fine combination.
Like Jasper’s new library, the ice surface was tilted the whole game in favour of the undefeated Fox Creek Bulldogs. Jasper spent a lot of time defending, and goaltender Kelan Polard played the game of his life, taking more shots than town council during the 60 minutes of play. There were some stellar goals in the game, but, if there weren’t, I could tell this whole story through Polard’s performance between the pipes and how well his defense played in front of him.
That said, Jasper scored a scant five seconds into this game with Dana Angebrandt winning the opening faceoff, her wingers quickly gaining the zone, Dylan Dekker unselfishly feeding Matteo Tassoni by the side of the net, and Tassoni, as usual, making no mistake. He buried Jasper’s first goal with 19:55 left on the clock.
On what must have been the Bulldogs’ 20th shot, Fox Creek equalized halfway through the first period, after Jasper failed to corral a seeing-eye point marker. But then, with five minutes left in the first, Dekker regained Jasper’s lead, hammering in a rebound off a shot by Angebrandt.
Fox Creek returned the favour a minute later on the same play at the other end of the ice, but then Tassoni bookended the period with his second of the game, stuffing the puck under the Fox Creek netminder in the final minute of play.
In the second period, Polard continued to keep his team in the game, putting a hold on the Fox Creek snipers with some very simple, solid netminding: great positioning and a hot glove hand. The Bulldogs were circulating the puck well, but the Jasper blueliners, led by veterans Josh Howes and Justin McIsaac—who is still recovering from a broken finger from a few weeks back—and anchored by rookies Jacob Bartziokas and Owen Kearnan, kept the shooters to the outside.
Who knew that there is a “D” in library?
Picking up the puck at the Jasper blue line, and weaving his way through four Fox Creek players, Tassoni completed his hattrick and put Jasper up by two on a powerplay with seven minutes to play in the second. Jasper had to kill its own penalty as the period wound down, but kill it they did, rounding out the middle frame with a 4–2 lead.
In the third, the tension mounted and the enthusiasm in the stands far exceeded that tolerated by any self-respecting librarian. The key for the Bears was to get the puck out of their zone and Adrian Torres did just that.
Fox Creek pulled within one halfway through the period on an end-to-end play, and then looked like it would tie it up on a two-on-one, but the Bulldogs weren’t counting on a deft Polard poke check breaking up the rush.
Minutes later, in the play that may well define the Bears’ season, centre Aidan Deagle chased a loose puck at centre, put on a burst of speed, fought off the Bulldogs’ defender, gained the zone and fired a laser top shelf—around where books by Marcus Zusak and Stefan Zweig hang out.
Fox Creek would press and get one more by the time the game was over, but the game would end on budget with no overtime needed.
The score after 60 minutes was Jasper 5, Fox Creek 4.
The next game for the PeeWees is in Hinton next Friday night.
They also have a library in their rink. As ours will be moving soon, I’ll enjoy it there while I can.
John Wilmshurst Special to the Fitzhugh
