Talk of the Town deposits three on Gunnison Bank & Trust

Serving all your banking needs since 1910

By Than Acuff 

How bout the weather?

Shutup.

The weather is the weather and while it can affect your mood, it doesn’t affect town league hockey. Though it got close to affecting town league hockey forcing officials Cole Hanson and Sam Kay and town league hockey commissioner and town league player Bill Frame to do a little pregame repairs to some soft spots.

Speaking of officials, you got a problem with the officiating? Do the training, put on the stripes and get out there and ref. I will agree, USA Hockey doesn’t make it easy, but the current slate of officials did it so keep your mouth shut, it’s only town league. Though Mos would say otherwise.

All of that nonsense aside, the top two teams in the C/B league, Talk of the Town and Gunnison Bank & Trust (GB&T), faced off in C/B town league hockey action Sunday night at Big Mine Ice Arena and left the fans on the edge of their “seats” (even the Talk’s super fan—God Bless her and her enthusiasm for town league hockey) before the Talk emerged with a 3-2 win to hold their top spot in the league. 

Both teams started out quickly with Gigi Jensen flying up the wing and feeding the slot to get GB&T going and then Talk standout Andi Heilman turning the puck back up ice to attack the GB&T net with goalie Jordan Silva making the stop.

Following the wide open first couple of minutes, GB&T took over as some shuck and jive from Scott Reamer opened a shot, Beth Schumacher skated to the near post looking to stuff a backhand in and CJ Hoover found a seam to fire on net only to have all attempts turned away by Talk goalie Nicholas Mikeska.

Their efforts on offense did expose them though and the Talk took advantage late in the first period as a Talk breakout sent Doug Collin free up the ice with Heilman joining him. Collin found Heilman open and Heilman found the back of the net and the Talk was up 1-0 after one period of play.

GB&T continued their attacking ways to open the second period as defensemen Bill Frame and Clay Meier held tough at the blue line to keep feeding the puck deep, but they couldn’t crack the Mikeska seal.

Once again, the Talk capitalized on the GB&T press as Andreas Kavountzis found open ice up the wing to fire a shot and score for a 2-0 Talk lead. But GB&T’s full commit would eventually pay off six minutes into the second period as Mikeska stopped shots by Meier and Heilman, but Hoover was there for the third and final shot to punch it home.

GB&T got close to tying the game in the waning minutes of the second period when a pinpoint pass from Jeff Duke sent Mark Goldberg loose, but Mikeska stuffed Goldberg’s attempt and the Talk took their slim one-goal lead into the third period.

After threatening all game long, Goldberg finally found the Midas touch when he took a cross-ice pass from Reamer and turned the Talk defenseman around with a double move and scored tying the game 2-2 four minutes into the third period.

The Talk would retake the lead two minutes later as Collin set up Heilman for her second goal of the game and the Talk spent the remainder of the game holding on to finish GB&T off 3-2.