Town league hockey action heats up at Big Mine

Last Steep serves it up, REG engineers win

by Than Acuff

Double up folks, ’cause it’s getting cold out there—but not at Big Mine Ice Arena as teams squared off in town league hockey action Monday night.

The evening opened with another Last Steep win as the Steep skated to a 5-1 win over Altitude Painting, paced by goals from Shai Ovadia, Dennis Magetti, Megan Paden, Will Dujardin and Matisse Baugh. Rusty Thompson had the lone strike for Altitude Painting.

The rink crew then went to work, serving up another fresh sheet of ice for the late game and everything appeared to be on schedule until a strike from the heavens above prior to the game shattered the glass behind the south goal, forcing a delay in the start.

“It wasn’t me,” said Reverend Tim Clark.

The glass was swept, repairs were set in place and the puck dropped for a showdown between the order of REG and the chaos of Clark’s Market.

Chaos reigned supreme in the first period as Clark’s Market set the pace on the ice, setting up shop in REG’s zone on several occasions to fire off shots. The strikes missed their mark but things were looking good as Dakota Wiggins broke loose to head to the REG net. John Holton sprinted back to cut off Wiggins, drawing a penalty and serving up another series of chances for Clark’s but the back of the net continued to elude them.

After surviving the Clark’s onslaught, REG regrouped for the second period to design a much more cohesive attack utilizing angles, rise and run and slope derivatives to find seams in the Clark’s defense. The adiabatic change created enough tensile stress to break down Clark’s defense as Dodson Harper scored off a pass from Jack Weise.

Three minutes later REG struck again as the thermal efficiency of Billy Watson’s skating up the boards left two Clark’s players spinning and Watson skated to net to finish with a backhand for a 2-0 lead.

The continued work by REG resulted in an increase in the Peltier Effect as Clark’s cooled down and REG heated up and REG netted a third goal as Sam Kay finished of a pass from Watson for a 3-0 REG lead.

Evan Albanese did whatever he could to try to spark a Clark’s comeback, with Geza Michel holding things down defensively but struggled to uncover any redox potential in REG’s play as REG held on to the 3-0 shutout.