With the Tigers looking to secure 2 nd place in the standings and the Raptors vying for 4 th place, both sides arrived with full squads looking for the win. Far from a cakewalk for the Tigers, the game was a tightly-contested affair, the game featured see-saw action, starting with Mal Turner’s marker at the halfway point of the first that was quickly matched by a deft end-to-end rush by Tommy “Ladies call me Cake” Sullivan. Clearly rattled after Cake’s Robert H. Orr impression, Raptors defenceman Ross Kolton was penalized for flagrant goonery on Kevin Yu. Less than a minute later, the Tigers capitalized when speedster Dan Definney notched a powerplay marker after a sweet dish from Jeff Millard. Shortly before the end of the frame, Korey Frame finished off a beautiful pass from Murray Richardson to tie up the fast-paced game going into the second.

In the following period, it was all Raptors. Despite dominating in both the face off circle and offensive zone, they weren’t able to pull ahead. Following a Tigers penalty and some nice mucking by Raptors enforcer Paul Bray, Mal Turner notched his second goal of the game. Having none of that, Cake Sullivan quickly registered his second goal of the game, with the dime going to Clay Laughren. Shortly after scoring, Cake laid a delicious hit on Turner as he cut in towards the crease, prompting gasps in the crowd and cries of jubilation from the other Raptors at the prospect of actually touching the puck if Turner stayed down.

While the scrappy Turner remained in the game, on the ensuing powerplay Marcus Maidment finally solved Tigers netminder John Osmar, following a great individual effort from Richardson. On their heels, the Tigers called a timeout where coach Cake was overheard giving a peptalk for the ages: “Take the body…I’m not letting anyone else go to my net, so why doesn’t anyone step up!” Inspired by their coach forgetting that the CIHL is a non-contact league, Kevin Yu quickly responded his 13 th goal of the year.

Following another rousing speech from Cake at intermission (“You have to take him [Turner] out. Not the way I did, but…uh…@#&$!”), the final period saw another dominant effort from the upstart Raptors, but neither team was to find a way to put it past Jeff Cuvilier (who miraculously didn’t take a single penalty in the entire game) or John Osmar. The highlight of the period had to be when Paul Bray and Kevin Yu were both sent to the sin bin with matching unsportsmanlike penalties after what must have been a terrifying exchange of Chinglish.

In the surprisingly quick shootout, Tigers netminder John Osmar was beat by Richardson, the first shooter, and then shut the door for good. After consecutive Raptor misses and a marker by team captain Cake, Dan Definney put the icing on the…um…well, he went top cheese after a filthy ‘how-do-you-do’ dangle on Cuvilier to seal the victory for the Tigers.

3 Stars: