The Flin Flon Bombers had a wonderful oppurtunity to take a strangle hold of their Northern Semi-Final with the Nipawin Hawks this past Tuesday after a convincing 7-2 win on Monday.
Things did not go according to plan and Nipawin scored 57 seconds into game 4 and ended up hanging on for a 4-3 win to even this best of 7 affair at 2.
Eli Lichtenwald fianally made his presence felt scoring the first 2 goals to give the Hawks a 2-0 lead after 1. The Bombers would get on the board with Jason Wark picking up his first of the series to get Flin Flon back in it.
The teams would continue to trade momentum with Tad Kozun scoring to restore the 2 goal lead before Landon Hiebert would score his second of the series to give the Bombers life late in the second.
The game winning goal went to Taylor Balog who didn't even suit up for game 3, scored early in the third to put the Hawks up for good 4-2. Spencer Mault would make it interesting scoring midway through the third but that is as close as the Bombers would get and ended up losing 4-3.
So the Hawks have taken back home ice advantage and will have 2 of the next 3 at home if they end up playing 7.
After a rough start in game 3, Davis Jones was much better stopping 35 out of 38 shots while Buffalo made 28 saves.
Power plays continue to be a non factor with the Hawks 0 for 17 in this series and the Bombers sitting at 1 for 20 - but do have a short handed goal.
Andy Blanke who was writing exams on Tuesday will be back in the lineup tonight and so will Brett Boehm who is recovering from the flu.
The Bombers have outshot the Hawks in all 4 games so far and have played 2 solid games in Nipawin. There is a very strong contingent of Bomber fans that have been at every game of this series and a lot are expected to be back at the Cage tonight.
A lot of the Bomber players have told me how electric it is to step on the ice with this much fanfare. Games 1 and 2 were extremely loud and look for Bomber fans to make their presence felt again tonight.
The Flin Flon Bombers remain one of the most historic and talked about franchises in Junior Hockey and their solid fan base remains one of the reasons why.
If you can't be in Nipawin we will bring you all the action on CFAR 590 and flinflononline.com tonight. Don't forget it is an 8:30 start tonight which means we will be on the air at 8:15.
Cheer loud, it always makes a difference.
Rob Hart
