Female Flyers Win The Battle Of The Blue Lines
By Robert Thomas
Milestone, SASK - The last time they met the Milestone U18 A Female Flyers and Balcarres Barracudas almost gave the official score keeper carpal tunnel syndrome.
Eleven goals were scored in total.
With Balcarres coming out on top 6 - 5 and claim Game One in the best of three games Saskatchewan Female Hockey League's U18 A South Division final.
The Flyers once again faced elimination on Friday evening as the Barracudas swam into the Milestone Memorial Rink looking to devour them for lunch.
But instead of being devoured in two games the Flyers fought back and harpooned the Barracudas reeling in a 1 - 0 shutout victory.
Milestone's Callie Callaghan (Left) battles for the puck against a Balcarres player. The game was a tight checking defensive game - MJ Independent photo
While Game One was an opportunity to pad a player's point scoring columns Friday night's Game Two in Milestone was a hard fought defensive game.
A game where the final outcome was decided upon the ability to break out of your blue line.
Plus the ability to stop the opponent just inside your blue line.
It was also a game where about 300 people seemingly brought out every noise maker known to mankind - minus perhaps only a World War II air raid siren - to turn the Milestone Memorial Arena into the noisest rink in Saskatchewan on Friday night.
FIRST PERIOD
The First Period set the tone for the entire game.
Just two minutes into the game Milestone netminder Kamrie Kaufmann made a stupendous save keeping Balcarres off of the scoreboard.
A key battle area was behind the net on both ends of the ice - MJ Independent photo
After icing the puck Carylyn Weisgerber drew a hooking penalty at 13:32 deep in Milestone's end of the rink.
In the resultant power play Balcarres never got a decent scoring opportunity.
In a key heads up play in the game Jordyn Vermeulen robbed precious momentum from the Barracudas.
While 20 feet inside Balcarres zone instead of trying to dump the puck past a pair of Balcarres players Vermeulen elected to tie the puck up against the left wing boards.
Vermeulen would take on three Balcarres players along the left wing boards wasting 20 precious seconds of her opponent's player advantage.
Milestone would successfully send the puck three times down the ice on the penalty kill.
There was plenty of hard fought battles along the boards during the game - MJ Independent photo
Minutes later at 9:58 Milestone would see themselves with a two player advantage for one minute and twenty seconds.
It was time for the Barracudas penalty kill to spring into action.
Deep in their end Balcarres fought hard against Milestone.
The Barracudas strongly challenged the Flyers managing to not only keep them out of the defensive triangle in front of their net but challenged them along the boards.
The Flyers were pushed to the corners by an aggressive Barracudas penalty kill.
The Flyers could manage only three shots with all three being lower quality scoring opportunities.
Milestone Flyers Allison Duncan (right) passes the puck to a teammate to clear the zone right after Balcarres dumped the puck in - MJ Independent photo
The Flyers would finally get on the scoreboard when after a brief battle deep in the left wing corner and Jessie Mielke mades a heads up play passed the puck out front to Emily Quigley.
Standing alone 25 feet directly in front of the Balcarres net Quigley unleashed a wicked wrist hand past Balcarres netminder Danika Osborne.
The resultant uproar from the crowd seemingly lifted the Milestone Memorial Rink from its foundations.
Time of the goal was 4:31.
Whenever the puck was in the corner Milestone would often flood the slot position in front of their goal as forwards helped out the defence - MJ Independent photo
Milestone's mindset was they were not done in the scoring department but Barracudas netminder Osborne would wpie those thoughts from the Flyers minds.
With 2:33 left in the period Osborne would make a massive glove side save turning the momentum back in the visitor's favour.
Balcarres came back on the attack.
At the 1:37 mark Kaufmann would make a save off her stick with the puck going straight up when she lost sight of it.
With Kaufmann dropping to the butterfly position the puck hit the inside of the post, then hit her pad and stayed out.
It was almost as if one of the many ghosts of some long forgotten senior men's team whose memories seemingly haunt the Milestone Memorial Arena reached back into the net and helped Kaufmann out.
An unidentified Balcarres Barracudas and Milestone Flyers players battle in the corner up against the glass - MJ Independent photo
Balcarres would continue to apply pressure in Milestone's end but the Flyers would battle on until the horn sounded to end the period.
SECOND PERIOD
The Second Period saw the Flyers win key battle after battle along the blue lines.
The Flyers did not retreat to fight the battles in the corners or the highly playable area behind their net.
Balcarres comes up with the puck in the second period after a hard fought battle which left players sprawled on the ice behind the Barracudas goal - MJ Independent photo
But rather they challenged and won the battle within 10 feet of their blue line stopping Balcarres and keeping the puck out of their zone.
When it came to clearing the puck from their zone Milestone managed to out battle the Barracudas and get the puck out along the boards.
There were more unintentional icings by Milestone than scoring opportunities for Balcarres during the period.
A stand up play of the period saw the Flyers Cara Faris dump the puck into the opposite side corner while rushing down the right wing.
Faris would use her speed to break past the Barracudas defense and get to the puck first.
THIRD PERIOD
The Third Period saw the battles continuing.
The Flyers continued to dominate the battle for the blue lines until late in the period.
The Barracudas would get a break in close to the Milestone net. With the Balcarres players bearing down on netminder Kamrie Kaufmann they shot the puck wide down low on the glove side.
MILESTONE GOALTENDER KAMRIE KAUFMANN WATCHES A PUCK JUST GO WIDE in the second half of the third period - MJ INDEPENDENT PHOTO
With time running out the Flyers managed to move the puck deep into the Barracudas zone.
The Flyers would battle and since the Barracudas couldn’t clear the zone, or if they did get past center ice, there was no opportunity to pull Osborne for the extra attacker.
The Barracudas applied pressure with about four minutes left in the game - MJ Independent file photo
As the final buzzer sounded the Barracudas net stood occupied.
COACHES’ COMMENTS
For Milestone Flyers’ coaches the game was what they were expecting in the series.
Hard fought, defensive and low scoring.
The Game One score-athon was a fluke that came out of nowhere for both teams.
“It was very good. It was our best outing yet,” Milestone Flyers head coach Shane Kaufmann told MJ Independent in the post game interview.
“Our whole team played awesome tonight. Everybody stepped up,” Kaufmann said when asked if Vermeulen's heads up play on the penalty kill was the major turning point of the game.
He and co-coach Darrell Perras said you couldn’t really single out any turning point or Flyers player as standouts on Friday evening.
Everyone on the entire Flyers team played likely their best game of the 2022 - 2023 season.
Milestone Flyers Peighton Materi (left) reaches in battling for puck possession - MJ Independent photo
“In the first game they were breaking out of their zone pretty easily,” Perras said, adding “so we just Saud we have got to have a little bit better effort on the blue lines. Getting pucks out and getting pucks in.”
Asked if Game Two was decided between the blue lines Perras said “I would have to say at the blue lines.”
“The first game we had a little bit of trouble getting pucks out and getting pucks deep but I thought we did a little better job doing that,” he said.
Asked what the team was looking for on Game Three this Sunday afternoon in Balcarres Peras said “another solid effort.”
“Now that we are in the third round with two really good teams it is just going to be like who wants it more. It will be another close game,” he said.
“They're a good team.”
Milestone Flyers Allison Duncan skates out with the puck - MJ Independent photo
Asked about the incredible fan support for U18 A female hockey in Milestone and if they thought that was surprising neither coach did.
“All of our players, and their families, and the Milestone community, and all of the surrounding communities- because we have girls from all over - they support this team. They support all of our local small town teams,” Perras said.
Regular sized crowds for Flyers games have consistently been at the 200 fan mark with crowds surging hundreds more for the playoffs.
It’s a similar response from Balcarres Barracudas head coach Mark Hartman seeing hundreds of people out to cheer on the Barracudas is simply normal and not surprising.
Editor's Note - Check Out Our Upcoming story about fan support. With comments from both coaches.
Friday night's defensive and low scoring battle is what Balcarres expected the series to be.
“It was a tight checking battle out there. Not a lot of time or space for either team. Kind of going into the series this is what we expected,” Hartman said.
“Game One was a high scoring affair and it kind of caught both teams off guard I think. But tonight it was more of what we expected two teams that had time and space away, a tough battle,” he said.
Asked even though the result wasn’t what Balcarres wanted on Friday evening if the tight and competitive game was good for the fans he replied yes.
“Absolutely we have got a lot of support back home and there is a lot of fans here and you know it’s exciting hockey,” Hartman said.
The tight checking and competitive game could have gone either way.
“You know a bounce here or there it can go either way. The same thing from Game One its definitely exciting hockey and exciting for the fans to watch,” he said.
Game Three goes tomorrow afternoon Sunday March 19th at 2:30 pm in Balcarres.