Sprawled out in his crease, Tuesday Night Thunder’s goalie Gord Reed reached out with his stick, stopping the shot of Flyers’ Mike Blower in mid-flight. Reed stopped all three of the Carmacks Flyers’ shooters to give his team a 3-2 shoot-out win in the division A finals in the Whitehorse Oldtimer Tournament held over the weekend at Takhini Arena.
“Gord, our goalie, he’s the one that brought us this far,” said Whitehorse Thunder’s Wade Harrison, who scored his team’s two regulation goals. “He shut the door in the last game, so he deserves a lot of the credit.”
The Thunder’s only loss in the three team division came on Friday against the Flyers, losing 7-3. Again, according to Flyer Wayne Crowe, the deciding factor was Reed.
“Their goalie had a real bad game on Friday and he played well the rest of the weekend,” said Crowe. “When he pulled his socks up, they were in the tournament with everybody else.”
Harrison’s two goals twice tied the game after going down by one, the second of which came with just 1:10 remaining in regulation time.
“It squeezed by Mike (Hawkins) and dropped in behind him,” said Harrison. “He thought he had it so it was sitting behind him, and I just happened to be in the right spot and was able to get a stick on it.”
The Thunder’s first goal was more of a blooper for the Carmacks team, accidentally scoring on themselves while passing the puck in their zone.
“It’s too bad we gave them that one goal,” said Crowe.
“Nobody knows,” added Crowe when asked how it happened.
Finishing third was the Rats from Whitehorse.
“They’re from some hole in the ground,” joked Crowe. “That name suits those guys well.”
In the B division finals, Anchorage’s Chris Luiten scored four straight goals to propel his team over Haines Junction in a 5-4 finish. Up 4-1 midway through the second period, the Junction managed to tie the game with goals by Wade Istchenko, Bob Allison and Scott Hume.
Taking the C division title was a Whitehorse team called Tuesday Oldtimers, getting a 5-0 shut-out win over Watson Lake in the finals. Terry Bergen and Gary Boyd both led the Oldtimers in points, each with two goals and an assist. The remaining goal was scored by Roger Veilleux.
“We had great banquet last night and a lot of work goes into that so hats off to the guys that organize that,” said Crowe. “We had a team cancel at the last minute so they had to juggle the schedules and it’s a tough thing to put on and it went off without a hitch.”
Contact Tom Patrick at
tomp@yukon-news.com