Game 2 of Sunday night’s “Ice Night” festivities had the difficult task of trying to upstage the game between Tigers and the Lions which featured the greatest shootout attempt in the history of the sport. Knowing the fans were craving more high flying excitement the Bears and the Wolves took to the ice with hopes of satisfying the wishes of the hundreds of somewhat sleepy fans. And they did not disappoint, as the fans were treated to plenty of goals, saves and even a fight. The Bears were looking to continue steamrolling over opponents and lock up the regular season title with a victory over the Wolves who were not willing go down without a fight.

The action started off as expected with the Bears dominating offensively and putting Wolves goalie Andrew Lunman to work right away. Bears superstar Steve Clark looked to open the scoring 3 minutes in by firing a slap shot that beat Lunman but couldn’t get past the crossbar. It was at this point that the Wolves may have started regretting the intense team meeting the night before which involved more strategy talk on how to keep drinking then how to beat the Bears. The Bears opened the scoring at the 5:45 mark when Justin “Goldilocks” Menzes fired a snapshot past Lunman. The Wolves were able to fend off the Bear attack for the rest of the period and were still very much in the game trailing 1-0 at the end of the first period.

The second period started like the first ended with the Bears forcing the Wolves into a defensive role. Solid work by the Wolves defensemen and Lunman kept the score 1-0 and gave the Wolves forwards a chance to make something happen offensively, but the Wolves forwards, perhaps sluggish from all the “information” they consumed during the team meeting could not put anything past Thomas Schnitzer.

Midway through the second period “Ice Night” organizer Dave Campbell decided that he really wanted a delicious cold Heineken and the only way to enjoy one right away was to get himself kicked out so he devised a plan to do just that. After the puck was fired on net and Lunman had it covered, Campbell skated over and said, “hey Lunman, the burgers at Jr. Cafe are way better then Bongos burgers!” Of course Lunman disagreed with this and rushed out towards Campbell and said “hey Dave why don’t you try our new stick sandwich with a side of blocker?” League leading penalty getter Steve Clark felt left out that people were going to the penalty box and he wasn’t so he grabbed Joe “My girlfriend digs fights” Hodson, and tried to introduce him to his friends “thunder” and “lightning”. Campbell got his wish and received a game misconduct and all the Heineken he could drink, and Hodson and Clark each got 6 minutes in the box. Clark could not have been happier.

When the dust had finally settled after the skirmish and the teams went back to playing hockey, it didn’t take long for the Wolves John Deng to put one past Schnitzer. The Bears answered back with a minute left in the second when speedy Mike Thornburn fired a wrist shot past Lunman.

If the Wolves thought they still had a chance starting the third it didn’t take long for Clark and the rest of the Bears to show them they were wrong. Clark buried a one timer off a pass from Menzies 30 seconds in, and Thornburn added another 30 seconds later. Wolves captain Jeremy Campbell did his best to get his team back in the game by scoring a pretty goal on Schnitzer but it was too little to late and the Bears added goals by Menzies, hat trick goal by Thornburn and the final nail in the coffin by Greg Walsh to make it 7-2. The Bears rookie stars Menzies and Thornburn each finished with 4 points.

Game 2 also saw the emergence of a new sheriff in town as Tim Poon made his CIHL refereeing debut and quickly started laying down the law with intensity that has not been seen since Walker Texas Ranger went off the air. Players from both teams soon learned the power of Poon as he shipped players off to the box so frequently the timekeeper/announcer could barely keep up with the paperwork and developed a hand cramp. At one point during the game the Bears had as many players in the penalty box as on their own bench. With the Wolves penalty box quite full as well, the players were disappointed to learn that there was in fact no beer for sale in the penalty box area.

With the victory the Bears clinched first place in the regular season and the Wolves failed to move up in the standings.

1 st Star – Mike Thornburn

2 nd Star – Justin Menzes

3 rd Star – Mitch the beer T’guy