It may have been only pre season, but the Laronge Ice Wolves under new coach Shawn Martin were all buisiness last night at the Whitney Forum.
The Ice Wolves came out and hit everything in sight, winning all the battles for loose pucks and took it to the Bombers for the majority of the evening.
Newcomer Tyson Vollette scored twice in the first 3 min of the game and Laronge never looked back. Chandler Bruykere got the Bombers on the board with a powerplay goal later in the first, but that is all the offense Flin Flon could muster.
The Ice Wolves would get an insurance goal from Evan Zdunich early in the second to make 3-1 and that would hold up for the rest of the game.
Final shots 31-18 for Laronge.
Power-Plays Laronge 1 for 5 while Flin Flon was 1 for 2. Both teams used 2 goalies with rookie Simon Hofley starting for Flin Flon who stopped 7 of 9 shots in the first. Buffalo played the second and third and stopping 21 out of 22. Dasan Sydora stopped 10 out of 11 shots and Tyler Fuhr stopped all 7 shots he faced in the Laronge goal.
Mike Reagan was not happy with his team's effort and had this to say after last night's game.
" Laronge looked like a team that does not want to finish in the basement this year. We had a bunch of guys that just put on the equipment tonight and went for a skate."
" I think we are going to process this loss here tonight. I thought it was a pretty bad effort by our guys, there are probabaley some guys in there that by the way they played tonight may not be a part of this team. Obviously we are emotional after a loss like that, we have to cool our jets here and do some realistic thinking."
The Bombers will have a chance to correct things as they will be right back on the ice tonight when they get ready to host the OCN Blizzard.
The Bombers are expected to ice pretty much there A team with McCombie, Blair and Brett Boehm all expected to play. Mike said they may need to take a look at a few more rookies as well.
Don't forget all the action on CFAR-590 and flinflononline.com tonight with the Murray GM Coach's Show at 7:10 and play by play at 7:30. This will be our first of 34 Flin Flon Bomber broadcasts this season.
The biggest crowd of the pre season is expected tonight with OCN looking for redemption after getting hammered in their own building to the tune of 11-2 last Friday with pretty much a rookie lineup. The Blizzard are expected to have a lot more vets in their lineup tonight and it should be a very electric atmosphere.
These 2 teams don't play each other often, so make sure you don't miss it. This should be another epic chapter in this great rivalry.
See you tonight
Rob Hart.
