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Stars vs Ducks

Commentary Contributors: Stephen Ho & Bryan Lim

The Stars came out flying, opened the scoring and took the upper hand in Game 1 with a convincing 7 – 4 victory led by Mark Steunenberg with the hat trick.

In Game 2, the tide changed as the Ducks, spearheaded by Collin Peters and Adam DeJong took an early four-goal lead before putting one past the Stars Mike Lim. The Stars hadn’t come this far to throw the night away and persistence paid off as they rallied an impressive come back. With the game tied 6 – 6 Mark Steunenberg stepped up to be the hero of the night and put the nail biter of a game to bed with an assist on the play from Steve Kim.

Both games were hard hitting spirited affairs. Andrew Shobridge said “I don’t know who hit me from behind but when I braced myself against the boards, it was hard enough to snap my stick right in half”. Take it easy out there boys!

The Ducks played without their regular net minder Adam Galpin who was off to London to watch a little football. Nevertheless, this was by no means the reason for the defeat as the rookie forward turned net minder, Bryan Ward played extremely well in both games. The Ducks also welcomed the arrival of Jon Harbut from the waitlist list. Jon’s hard work and determination earned him his first goal and assist of the season.

The Stars and Ducks are now tied for third place. Game night MVP’s go to the Stars Mark Steunenberg, and the Ducks Stephen Ho.


Sharks vs Coyotes


The Sharks and Coyotes were locked in a close battle for the longest time in Game 1. That was with the outstanding goal tending of Cody Funston and Ken den Braber's quick glove hand. Ken played well in his first netminding assignment for the Coyotes. Funston and four goal post shots took the fun out of the game for the Coyotes who were held to only two goals as the Sharks rolled over their opponents in a full team effort 7 – 2 win with everyone on their bench showing up on the score sheet.

In Game 2 the Sharks got off to an early 3 – 1 lead with goals from Kevin Lim, Chris Buss and Gordie Gildmeister. The Coyotes came back hard with three goals in a row from John Hetherington, Marcus Schmalling and Dave Sattler making it 4 – 3 and causing Funston to worry a little. That is until in his own words, “Lim came back” with two quick goals putting the Sharks on top again with the momentum to nail the night shut 7 – 4.

Both of these games were also “hard hitting spirited affairs”, a little too much hard hitting and high sticking in this writers opinion. Marcus Schmalling handled it better than I would have when he was taken to the ground with a round house, pitch forking high stick off to the side of the Sharks net and was forced to leave the floor.

In order to help keep the play fun, competitive, safe and fair I propose we look at the rules again.
I suggest timed penalties for players who purposefully or recklessly body check or high stick an opponent thus gaining an unfair advantage and risking injury. The offending player would sit out and cause their team to play shorthanded. Any stopwatches, or know of any portable scoreboards out there that we can borrow?

In the end the Sharks had more spark on the night, played better as a team and did what they had to do to get the job done to take the first place spot - for now. MVP’s for the night were goalkeepers Cody Funston, and Ken den Braber.

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Next week The Stars & The Coyotes kick it off at QM with the Ducks fighting off the Sharks at Larson.