Sports News

Bombers Off To Final

The Flin Flon Bombers have done the unthinkable, by overcoming a 3-0 deficit after the first period Saturday and defeating the Battleford Stars 6-5 in double OT to win the SJHL Semi Final 4 games to 1.

 

Mason Etter scored a powerplay goal early in the second period and it seemed to give his team life. Brandon Switzer would also score to get the Bombers within one  at 3-2.

 

Battleford restored the 2 goal lead when Leonenko got his second of the series on the powerplay with just over 5 minutes remaining in the middle frame.

 

Flin Flon once again responded when Reitmeier scored a late powerplay goal at 17:49 to make it a 4-3 Battleford lead after 2.

 

The Stars came out with a good start in the third when Kanter was able to bury a nice shot past  Robidoux just 3:55 into the final period. Battleford looked like they were in control and would get the series back to the Whitney for game 6.

 

The Bombers never panicked and were able to take advantage of their opportunities. The first one came from Switzer when he wa able to get in close on Tyler Fuhr and slide a shot past him low glove side.

 

This was Switzer's second of the night and team leading 7th of the playoffs.

 

Enter Rylee Zimmer who would score the tieing goal when he converted a beautiful feed from Wilson and pot a puck into the empty net on a delayed peanalty coming to the Stars.

 

Zimmer didn't know it yet but he was going to score an even bigger goal than this. Zimmer's tieing goal came at the 8:23 mark to make it 5-5 and the score would hold up for the rest of regulation.

 

The first overtime decided nothing so a second overtime was needed. It looked like the Stars had won the game when Dustin Gorgi took a pass in front of the Bomber net and had Zac Robidoux on the other side of the goal but he fired it off the post in disbelief.

 

Some of the Stars had raised  their sticks in the air as they thought Gorgi scored, but Zimmer realized it hit the pipe and he raced up the ice, cut across the Battleford blue line and fired a shot through Tyler Fuhr's legs and he and his team- mates celebrated the biggest goal of his career.

 

This was especially sweet for Zimmer who had lots of family and friends in attendance. Matter of fact out of the over 2000 in attendance at the Civic centre, I would say 400 had to be Bomber fans.

 

Zac Robidoux picked up his second straight win, stopping 41 out of 46 Battleford shots. Flin Flon fired 61 shots at Tyler Fuhr.

 

What an impressive playoff  run for this team who are 8-2 in the post season, with 5 wins on the road. Battleford only lost 4 games in their building all season but Flin Flon managed to win all 3 on the road in this series.

 

The Bombers now return to the league final for the first time in 23 years and will get a few days rest with the other SJHL Semi Final going to a seventh game in Melfort Wednesday. Nipawin won 2-0 Sunday to force game 7.

 

No matter who wins the Bombers will once again start the series on the road and it will be an all Sherwood Final.

 

I am very happy for Head Coach Mike Reagan who has worked very hard over 9 seasons and has put together some very talented teams that always seemed to come up short. Not this time as this seems to be a special group that truly believe in their coach and one another.

 

I feel truly blessed to be broadcasting these games and to think I almost retired this year and would have missed out on this once in a lifetime opportunity. I have never broacast a league final before and I am relishing this chance to call the biggest series for the Bombers in my 20 years at the helm.

 

The organization has always treated me well and I respect the entire franchise very much. I have met a lot of great people throughout the years and am proud to say that many of the players that have put on that jersey are some of my best friends today.

 

Look forward to seeing you at the rink for the Canalta Cup and continue to cheer loudly, it has been overwelming.

 

As soon as the league final schedule is released, I will post on this blog.

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