A pair of 4-3 wins has the Airdrie Xtreme above .500 for the first time early in its Bantam AAA hockey season.
On Sept. 29, the Xtreme beat the Calgary Bisons on the road, before staging a furious third period comeback on the Camrose Kodiaks at the Ron Ebbesen Arena on Oct. 3.
It was a unusual game characterized by a bizarre play 3:33 into the third period, when Camrose, up 2-1 and already shorthanded, was called for another penalty. After Airdrie goalie Malcolm Walilko skated to the bench for the extra attacker, the puck was somehow shot out of the Kodiak zone and ended up in the Xtreme net.
The referee and linesmen conferred for several moments and decided to award the goal to Kodiak netminder Zach Klassen.
“In all my years I’ve never seen a call like that,” said Xtreme head coach Terry Keogh. “Clearly it was one of their players that shot it down and the play should have been dead. But what it did was infuriate our guys and I think it gave us some momentum to drive our comeback.”
Mackenie Bauer had two goals, including the game-winner at the 16:12 mark of the third, to lead the Xtreme. Ryan Zeniuk and Ben Kriwokon had the other two.
It was defenceman Kriwokon’s power play goal with 1:30 left in the first that opened the scoring to put the Xtreme up 1-0 at the intermission.
But a series of costly penalties in the second, including captain Colby Chartier’s game misconduct for hitting from behind, put the momentum on Camrose’s side. The Kodiaks capitalized with two power play goals 29 seconds apart to lead 2-1 at the second intermission.
“When you’ve got officials who call it that tight you’ve got to change your game and we didn’t react,” Keogh said.
Klassen’s odd goal put Camrose up 3-1 with 17:27 remaining, but it was his big saves that kept the Kodiaks alive as Airdrie started to pour on the offence.
“He played well, but we made him look good,” Keogh said. “We had some point-blank shots and were shooting right at him. We’ve had opportunities to score early and we didn’t, so we were down by a couple goals and had to battle back.”
Bauer finished a tic-tac-toe passing play from Tyler Wong and Kyle Pauls, to bring the Xtreme within one goal with 6:15 left. Zeniuk scored 53 seconds later, on a great individual effort, before Bauer tipped in a Wong shot with 3:48 left to put Airdrie up 4-3.
“Those three guys can dominate a game,” Keogh said of Bauer, Wong and Pauls. “Today they were a little bit off, but when we needed them they got back into it. We’ve now had a couple of character-building games. But a win is a win and we’ll take the two points any way we can get them.”
The Xtreme will compete in a tournament in Red Deer during the Thanksgiving weekend, before returning home to host the Medicine Hat Hockey Hounds on Oct. 17. Game time is 1 p.m. at the Ron Ebbesen Arena.
