T-Men Claim First Victory of the Season

June 23, 2009

The two-game road trip this weekend came with hopes of a brighter future for the T-men. The team made the ferry ride over to Burnaby on Friday for the 7:45 game start at Bill Copeland Arena to play the Lakers, and then made the trip to Coquitlam to play the Adanacs on Saturday night. The weekend started out great, with a 10-7 win over the Lakers, bringing the Timbermen their first win of the season. Game two against the Adanacs was just as exciting, however the T-men lost by two in overtime, keeping the final score at 13-15 in favour of Coquitlam.

Game one against the Lakers was extremely exciting, each team going goal-for-goal throughout the game. Nanaimo opened up the scoring about a minute into the first, with a goal from Shane Pederson, and an assist from Ryan Campbell. All of 30 seconds later, Burnaby scored their first. And so the game went. Scott Ranger scored his first and second of the game in the first, as well as Mike Morrison scoring his first of the game. Cayle Ratcliff also snuck in two assists, plus Campbell with another and Graeme Ross with one. The first period ended with the T-men having a 4-3 lead over the Lakers.

Burnaby opened the second period scoring, to tie things up with the Timbermen 2:57 into the second. However, Simon Stocks took the Timbermen ahead once again with a goal at 5:11, with an assist from Pederson. And once again, Burnaby scored to make this a see-saw game. Mike Morrison netted his second on a power play and was unassisted, to take the T-men ahead of the Lakers, and then Brad Scott scored his first of the game, also a power play goal with assists from Kaleb Toth and Ranger. Burnaby scored once more in the second, but 30 seconds later, Bobby DeBrone and Stirling Mitchell made a nice play to Graham Palmer, who scored for the T-men, giving them an 8-6 advantage to go into the third period.

The third period scoring was opened by Simon Stocks with assists from Kyle Couling and the red-hot Ranger. Although Burnaby scored once more during the game, keeping hopes of a win alive for Lakers fans, the T-men shut them down, with Andrew Kirkaldy scoring once more goal, with Campbell's third assist of the game to help out. The game ended in a 10-7 win for the T-men, their first of the season. Scott Ranger earned first star of the game, with two goals and two assists, and goaltender Matt King received second star, with 50 saves throughout the night. The Timbermen had high hopes going into the second game against the Coquitlam Adanacs the following night.