Knoxville Ice Bears

Five Ice Bears score, win game one

date: 03/26/2009

            Minutes into Thursday’s playoff opener, the theme of the night became clear: Score at will. In a true display of team hockey, Knoxville used five different scorers to take a 1-0 series lead against Huntsville, defeating the Havoc 6-4. BJ Pelkey was the only player to cross the goal-line twice—a surprising statistic considering the shaky play of both goalies. Knoxville’s Andrew Gallant and Huntsville’s Tim Haun each surrendered rebound after rebound, directly accounting for seven of the game’s ten goals.

            After recording his first save of the game, Gallant attempted to clear the puck when it struck an Ice Bears defensemen and deflected back towards him. Stunned, Gallant couldn’t seem to find the puck and Justin Rohr gave the Havoc a 1-0 lead 1:52 into the game. Not to be outdone, the Ice Bears took the drop, raced down the ice and answered when Derek Pallardy scored off Shaun Norrie’s rebound to even the game at one. Four minutes later, Dennis Sicard became the second beneficiary of a Gallant rebound and the Havoc regained the lead 2-1. Norrie had another shot blocked 1:32 later, but the carom came to Derek Pallardy, passed back to Chris Brannen, who dialed in a long-range equalizer, 2-2. A bit of controversy surrounded the game’s fifth goal as John Ronan went flying into the back of the net seconds after the puck did and following a quick deliberation among the linesmen, the goal was allowed and Huntsville had reclaimed the lead 3-2 with 8:17 remaining in the first period. BJ Pelkey, falling backwards, put his first goal past Tim Haun at the 5:21 mark to make it 3-3.

            The second period saw a more poised Ice Bears side, allowing Knoxville to take the lead 4-3 when Mike Carter tapped in a loose puck four minutes into the period. Pelkey notched his second goal 4:10 later, assisted by Pallardy and the recently activated Mark Van Vliet, 5-3.

            Kevin Swider became the fifth Ice Bear to score in the game when Chris Rebernik slid the puck from the right corner to the left goal post to Tim Vitek, who found Swider at the top of the circle, beating Haun top-shelf during a 5-on-3 powerplay. Huntsville’s Travis Kauffeldt, the 2009 SPHL MVP, added a powerplay goal of his own in the 11th minute of the third period to give the game it’s 6-4 final.

            In Columbus, the Cottonmouths defeated the Fayetteville FireAntz 9-3 to take a 1-0 series lead.

            The Ice Bears try to take a commanding two game lead tomorrow night against the Havoc at 7:30 at the Knoxville Coliseum.

 

By Anthony Geist

 

 

 

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