The AON Flames (7-3-3) have been burning up the top spot in the Oldtimer hockey league since the start of the season. However, the Flames fell into second behind Medicine Chest (7-4-2) with a 4-3 loss to Yukon Inn November 6.
But with four of the league’s top 10 scorers on board, the Flames regained their spot at the top of the heap this week with a 3-1 win over the Firth Rangers Sunday and a 5-5 tie Wednesday against second place Medicine Chest at Takhini Arena.
“They’re a really good team, they really passed well,” said Medicine Chest’s Ross Phillips, who scored his team’s first two goals on the way to a hat trick.
“We pressed their defence … We really put one guy hard on defence all the time, trying to make sure that our second forward was back and cutting off the outlet pass.”
Medicine Chest’s Dave Bakcia scored four minutes into the final period to tie the game 4-4. Being a strong offensive team, the Flames bounced back with a goal by Jeff Jensen with 9:58 to play.
Phillips scored his third goal to tie with 1:20 left, taking a pass from Paul Lackowicz, who had three assists in the game. Despite the Flames taking three penalties in the final 13 minutes of the game, Phillips’ final goal came while both teams were at full strength.
“They putting a lot of pressure on us and we were trying to stop them,” said Flames’ Charles Broadhagen, who had a goal and assist in the game, speaking of the penalties. “We were touching and grabbing them a little bit — we had to hang on some how, I guess.”
The Flames jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first, before Medicine Chest took the lead with three unanswered goals.
“Most of the play was in our end and they just got a couple quick goals,” said Phillips, speaking of the Flames’ opening goals. “We had a lot of shots before that — it easily could have been 2-0 for us.”
“They were playing pretty good and we let our guard down for a while,” said Broadhagen of Medicine’s leap into the lead.
The teams’ previous encounter ended with a 5-2 win in favour of the Flames, with Medicine Chest giving up three goals in the final 10 minutes of play.
Contact Tom Patrick at tomp@yukon-news.com