The Four Wheel Drives continued their extended home stand
this past weekend with a Saturday night tilt with the Georgian Bay Apple
Kings and then followed by a matinee meeting with the
arch rival Durham Thundercats Sunday
afternoon. The team has managed to crawl out of the league basement and get
within striking distance of the last seed in the AA portion of the league. It
was indeed a big weekend for the black and gold and hopefully the spirit of the
season would smile upon the hometown heroes .
The last meeting
between the Drives and the Kings of Apples resulted in a high scoring affair
with the Kings taking the victory by a 7-5 score .
This had the makings of the proverbial 4 point game as Milverton was trying to
leapfrog in the standings to get last position in the double A side of the
league. I was unavailable for the last game and so this was my first visual of
the team’s uniforms. The combination of red and hunter green was quite striking
to go along with an original team crest
. Apparently the home set are
just as magnificent. First period action resulted in neither
team scoring as both teams were unable to solve the
goalkeepers .
Both teams were
playing a fast paced game with a lot of end to end action and plenty of timely
saves by both goalkeepers. Riley Kuepfer would eventual solve the King tendy
with a tally from Riley Connors and Coleton Quipp. Team Drive then appeared to
experience a momentary lapse of reason as the Apple Kings score three unanswered
goals in a three minute time frame. This current series of events left the team
behind 3-1 and the situation looked rather bleak. With time running out in the
second period, goal scoring phenom Dennis Dewar would shave the visitors lead
to a mere one goal .
With the third
period under way and the Kings clinging to a one goal lead one could feel the
tension building. The visitors would jump ahead by two at 15:14 to go ahead 4
-2. With just a little over 11 minutes left the coaching duo of Parker and
Chapman summoned the hockey gods and the team dug deep to mount an unbelievable
comeback. Dennis Dewar would score on the power play with assists going to
Curtis Rawn and Coleton Quipp. Jeff
Fritzley would bag his tenth goal on terrific top shelf tally that would tie
the score at four apiece. Rawn and Mitch Boertien would get the helpers . The power play was
looking dynamite in this game as the Drives had plenty of good looks on their
extra man opportunities . With the contest looking to go to overtime Riley Connors would score with 37 seconds
left to give the Drives the lead and eventual victory. Dewar and Brennan Watson
would pick up the assists. There would not be much time to savour the win as
the team would be facing arch rival Durham in less than 24 hours at the PERC
The ‘Cats and
the Drives squared off a few short weeks ago with Milverton on the losing side
of a 5-2 score albeit with an empty netter. Both teams looks evenly matched so
this prove to be another nail biter and the game proved not to disappoint. This
was great game to watch both teams played hard and not much goal scoring .
Chris Corbett scored the lone goal in the first frame when he picked off a pass
on the ‘Cats power play at the Drives blue line . Dashing in to the Durham end
he would tee up a clapper that blew by the Durham goalie . A huge tally with 8
seconds left on the clock.
Dennis Dewar would
notch his 13 th of the season at 17:49 of the second to go ahead two zip.
Assisted by Mitch Boertien and Brendan Schneider. The ‘Cats would narrow the
gap at 13:59 only to have Dewar get his second of the night and number 14 on
the year answer back and regain the two goal margin .With this goal Dennis is
now the all time goal scoring leader on the Drives . The teams would exchange
goals with Liam Buckley getting the game winner on a short handed effort . Durham
would add another goal with a power play goal with .2 seconds left on the
clock. This could have been demoralizing for the squad however third period
action was some of the best hockey the team has played this year . Tyler Fassl
was magnificent in the net and all the players
bought in and played a great game. With the four point weekend the
Drives sit in eighth spot . There is still a lot of work to do however this is
a great couple of games to build on. Next game is Sat December 30 against the
Minto 81’s.
Wishing everyone
a Merry Christmas as this will be my last scribe until after the jolly bearded
man comes bearing joy and happiness
Happy Birthdays Keith
Richards 80
Brad Pitt 60
Dale Waddell 51
Chris Angel 53
Holiday streaming options.......... Barry *****
Fargo – Season 2 *****
The Bear ****
Ted
Lasso ****