The air was electric at the Dave Andreychuk Mountain Arena Saturday night; the supporters of both teams riveted as game four of this best-of-five Ontario West semi-finals unfolded into a hard-fought well-disciplined highly-skilled contest between the two black-and-golds with the Bengals holding the two-games-to-one choke hold advantage and the Six Nations Rebels waiting in the wings to discover which West Finals suitor would prevail; a position which no Hamilton Bengals Jr B team in history has ever ascended to! In the Mohawks favour: All five of these teams' 2019 meetings (including two in the regular season) had gone the way of the visitors. In the Bengals favour: The Esteemed Elora Choir of Goalie Praise made the trip specifically to honour Bengal Lucas Nagy with the serenading of their latest single!
Coincidence or not, Nagy's performance was undoubtedly inspired. He would shut the 'Hawks out completely in the critical third period while allowing them just one goal in the first, this capping a prolonged frenzy with defensemen diving into the crease and fans on both sides losing their minds until Elora's Brett Harrison won the last and fatal rebound!
But meanwhile the B's were inexorably ramping up their offense game, starting with a deft snag-and-score by Luke Robinson on the doorstep. Later the high-flying Jake Parkinson made a hard-charging breakaway bid which tough Mohawk defenders seemed to foil until Parky, squeezed out on a sharp angle, somehow found a gap and fired it home. Into the final minutes the lofty Coltrane Tyson charged out of the deep corner against two defenders and managed several good looks before besting go-to goalie Ryan Fitzgerald. Three-One Bengals with plenty of credit to Nagy for some huge saves. But the B's had one more trick up their sleeve: Core defender Brendan Boyle would jump into a late odd-man rush and hit Tye Argent with perfect timing for the compact sniper to cast his standard crease-front wizardry and craft a lead of three at the break.
Backs to the wall...
Facing elimination Elora needed a big second period. What better than a two-minute power play to kick things off? Hunter Aggus and the men-in-black would comply with a rather pedestrian hold call but Nagy and his defense partners killed the whole deal. Undeterred, the visitors pressed and Ryan Mueller finally solved Nagy with a very sharp catch-and-shoot on a crease-front fly-by prompted nicely by key weapon Sam Dramnitzke and eventual third star-of-the-game Hyatt Welsh.
Here the above-mentioned choir launched into their mantra but it was the game's eventual second star, Argent gleaning the magic and quickly swindling Fitzy with another beaut, this one teed up by face-off guru Jack Travassos. Yvon Bolduc then followed up with a crafty feed to spring Braedon Saris in alone and the tiger side went up six-to-two, still shy of the game's half-way mark.
Time for a gamble perhaps with the writing on the wall for Elora Mohawks and for the first time in the series Fitzgerald was removed from the pipes in favor of young Sam Hadley. And the gamble indeed looked promising. The B's would not score again in the period as their transition game struggled to get shots to their best sticks. Nagy stayed huge to preserve the big lead as long as he could, especially while short-handed with Sam Gower serving two for another perfunctory holding incident.
But finally the dangerous Dramnitzke rushed in tight with the perfect leap and cut the lead to three. Then in the waning moments of frame-two Welsh and Mueller each scored to make it 6-5 at the break and seemingly anything possible!
Third period. Who would maintain their nerves? Who would break? Aggus took another penalty: A five-minute slashing major, and a dreaded game five started to look like a looming reality. The 'Hawks mounted huge pressure, both creating and giving up big scoring chances. Hadley looked great; Nagy nearly invincible, and when he collapsed to one side in another rebound frenzy it was Aaron Underwood making the jumping chest save with no chest pad and the empty net behind him! Almost miraculously the five-minutes were killed and immediately the Bengals were rewarded a power-play chance of their own. But both penalty-killer squads went perfect on this night and with a quarter frame remaining the score remained 6-5. Could this one-goal lead possibly hold up for the full twenty minutes?
Boots or Hearts
Something had to break and finally... with fans erupting... it was the youngster known in some circles as "the Gazelle" doing the damage on a deadly ripper from the slot! Coltrane Tyson unassisted! Bengals up two.
"Like boots or hearts," sang the now-legendary Gord Downie, "when it starts to fall apart it really falls apart." In game two at this same arena it was the Bengals who fought the good fight for fifty minutes until Dramnitzke and company knocked the wheels off their cart. This night fate looked the other way: With the visitors slipping into panic mode Hunter Aggus reached back from the goal line to delicately convert a zinger of a pass from Argent and swiftly then, constant two-way threat Dawson Brown hammered home the final nail. Nine-five Hamilton.
Nagy scored the trifecta: First star, Media award and most importantly: the Hammer. It may never happen again folks!
History is made with Jr B Bengals ascending to the third round of the playoffs: the conference championship. One TV broadcaster (and long-time Hamilton lacrosse contributor) confessed to being on the verge of tears while calling the third period on air!
Congratulations to the Elora Mohawks players for maintaining considerable class and poise throughout the series and for throwing everything at the Bengals they could possibly handle.
What matters and what doesn't
And an interesting note on the Bengals posture: According to trusted sources, the Bengals supporters who were kicked out of the Cat House game two after imitating the Esteemed Elora Choir of Goalie Praise could only possibly have been done so following a complaint to the referees from the visitors' coaching staff (for copyright infringement, perhaps?) Now let's not judge, as there is plenty of room in this equation for misunderstanding, but regardless, when this tip was passed on to Bengals coaches on this night, in the interest of perhaps returning the favour and ousting the choir, the response was an immediate "No. That doesn't matter." And oddly, when this media meddler congratulated Argent after the game and stated, "I'll make sure to get you credit for that awesome assist that they missed [from the official stat sheet]," his immediate response was literally, "No! That doesn't matter!"
One might infer that this record-breaking Bengals squad is clear about what does matter, and is locked into focus.
The next series begins just a short jaunt down highway six at the Iroquois Lacrosse Arena this Friday July 19th at 8PM. Some suggest that this may be the junior B match-up of the year. You might want to be there.
