Courier: Rockets tame Tigers
r By Doyle Potenteau – Kelowna Daily Courier
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r It wasn‘t last shot wins, but it was darn close. As in second-to-last shot.
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r Cody Chikie scored the game-winning goal for Kelowna, in the shootout, as the Rockets edged the Medicine Hat Tigers 6-5 in WHL action on Wednesday night. Kelowna forged an early 3-0 lead, only to have Medicine Hat wake up, fight back and make a game of it.
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r Of the 11 goals, eight came in the first two periods. Yet none were as strange as Chikie‘s marker, a fake slapshot from in tight which turned into a quick shot and the game winner.
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r “I thought he was shooting (the slapshot),” said Rockets head coach Ryan Huska. “I said ’I can‘t believe he‘s taking it.‘ But it was a great move and he did a great job. It‘s nice to see guys who haven‘t been put in that situation before respond like he did.”
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r “I knew what I was doing the whole time,” said Chikie, a 17-year-old rookie who played in the AJHL last season with the Sherwood Park Crusaders. “I‘ve done it a lot in practice, and it‘s worked well.”
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r Brandon McMillan, with two goals and one assist, plus a goal in the shootout, Stepan Novotny, with his eighth marker of the season, Spencer Main and Kyle St. Denis also scored for Kelowna (4-2-1-0).
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r McMillan made it 3-0 with a short-handed breakaway near the end of the first period, then added a power-play marker early in the second to give Kelowna a 4-3 lead.
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r Bretton Cameron, with two goals, Tristan King, Joey Frazer and Zdenek Okal replied for Medicine Hat (3-1-1-2), which scored three times early in the second, then added a fourth halfway through the frame to make it 4-4.
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r The two teams traded goals in the third, with Medicine Hat forcing overtime when Cameron roofed his second of the night at 19:46 with the Tigers‘ net empty.
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r Medicine Hat‘s first three goals came in a 49-second span; the WHL record for fastest three goals is 26 seconds (Winnipeg vs. Flin Flon, April 19, 1970; Winnipeg 10, Flin Flon 1).
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r Adam Brown made 30 saves for the Rockets, who visit the Vancouver Giants on Friday, then host the Prince George Cougars on Saturday. Tyler Bunz made 28 stops for the Tigers.
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r While it was entertaining for fans, Huska, asked if Wednesday‘s result helped turn his hair grey, said “it certainly wasn‘t entertaining for coaches. The second period is what bothered us, as we let off the gas peddle a bit. We stopped skating and stopped working and they took the game to us.”
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r “Things snowballed from there, and we had a hard time getting going again,” Huska continued. “We need to skate consistently, and that‘s all of our lines and all of our players, and we didn‘t do that.”
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r As for Medicine Hat, the Tigers walked away with a point to begin a four-game B.C. Division road trip.
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r “It was a wild game,” said Tigers captain Wacey Hamilton. “We put ourselves behind the eight-ball right away and kinda dug ourselves a hole. But we showed a lot of character coming back . . . it was an up-and-down game for both teams, and it was sorta last shot wins.
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r “After that first period, maybe we didn‘t deserve the second point. Maybe that‘s karma. But anytime you‘re able to get a point on the road, you gotta be happy, especially the way we did it tonight, getting behind early a 1,000 times then battling back. We have to take the positive out of this.”
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r ICE CHIPS: Kelowna‘s scratches were D Tyson Barrie (knee, shoulder, 1 week) D Mitchell Chapman (shoulder, 1 week), C Max Adolph (ankle, 4 weeks), LW Evan Bloodoff (knee, 6 months) and G Mark Guggenberger (pelvis, indefinite). Medicine Hat‘s scratches were G Ryan Holfeld, D Dylan Busenius, D Scott McKay, D Matthew Konan, RW John Stampohar (four-game suspension) and C Reid Petryk. . . . The Rockets lost D Kyle Verdino to injury late in the second period. While chasing a shoot-in into Kelowna‘s end, Verdino and Joey Frazer were jockeying for space, and Verdino fell into the end boards, then began immediately writhing in pain. He left the ice with help, with his right ankle lifted off the ice. Earlier this summer, Verdino was involved in a horrific car wreck, and he suffered a broken ankle. The Rockets say Verdino walked around later that night, and that he should be fine, but added they‘ll know more today. Frazer was hit with a hitting-from-behind major penalty and game misconduct.
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