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BATS DOWN BEES 5-3
By admin | February 23, 2008
By: Rachel ReidaHidalgo, Texas—Austin’s Brendan Cook had yet another solid night with the hat trick as he led the Ice Bats 5-3 over the Rio Grande Valley Killer Bees Friday night at the Dodge Arena. Cook (3-1-4) ended the night with four points and was helped by Mike Bartlett (1-2-3) and Ted Vandermeer’s (0-3-3) three points a piece, while Stuart Kerr posted the game-winner in their second win in as many nights over the Bees.
Cook posted his first goal at the 7:37 mark in the first period giving Austin the early lead 1-0 going into the second.
Rio’s Rob Voltera tied things up early in the second with a shorthanded goal just 19 seconds into the period with helpers from Travis Banga and Dennis Maxwell. The only lead of the night for the Killer Bees came at the 3:53 mark when Danny Lapointe nabbed his seventh goal of the season, but Rio’s lead lasted about five minutes after Cook tied things up at 8:10 with his second of the night.
Austin went on to score three more in the period to Rio’s one, with Austin’s Bartlett, Kerr and Cook all posting goals and Josh Garbutt with the power play goal for the Bees, ending the period and scoring with the game ending in favor of the Ice Bats 5-3.
Austin’s Doug Groenestege came away with the win in net with 32 saves, while Lemanowicz suffered the loss with 34 saves.
Rio takes on their rival Laredo Bucks Saturday night at the Dodge Arena. They will be sporting the Borderfest jerseys to be auctioned off after the game, and $1.50 beer all night with game time set for 7:35 p.m.
NOTES
- Rio is 1-9 in their last 10 games with their last win being a 5-2 decision in Austin Friday February 15.
- In the two game span Austin was able to post 10 goals against the Bees defense. (Five goals in Thursdays 5-1 Bees loss, and five in tonights 5-3 loss).
- many games, while Rob Voltera picked up a goal giving him five points (2-3-5) in his last seven games.
- Rio went 1-for-6 on the power play while holding Austin 0-for-6.
COACH FIXTER SOUNDBITES
The defense in the first period did well and helped out David Lemanowicz a lot, what happened in the second period (allowing four goals)?
“Our defensive zone coverage was attrocious; pathetic. They didn’t help Dave at all and at some points Dave didn’t help himself either I thought. It was just guys getting beat, mental break downs and not getting pucks out. It was missed assignments, you name it.”
What needs to be done to defeat Laredo tomorrow and get the win?
“Play a lot better than we did tonight. Tighten up our defensive zone and get our power play going.”
Start of the second period was good, what was discussed to spark the team?
“We talked about a couple of things, you look at the power play and getting traffic out in front and look what happens we win a face-off it gets back, we have two guys out front of the net and Josh Garbutt gets the shot through. There is no magic to this game they just did what they were supposed to do.”
Final thoughts?
“I really don’t have any final thoughts, I am just trying to stay positive. My buddy said it best to me today when I called him. A young 19-year-old boy was killed in the Ontario Hockey League this week and he was at the funeral. The boy played with Elgin Reed and I was talking with him about this year and the season and he told me to be thankful for the opportunity to fail, let alone succeed. There is a young hockey player who was drafted by the Calgary Flames who will never play again and he said “at least I have to opportunity, who cares, you are still here”. I am pissed off, upset and all those things, but all I can do is try to work through it and hopefully have 18 players who want to do the same thing.”
Topics: Game Recaps |
February 23rd, 2008 at 9:45 am
I noticed that the lines seemed to have been split vetrans vs young guns, I think it worked, most of the young guys played with alot of grit, yes some mistakes were made but we learn from those mistakes, kudos to the young guns, keep playing hard. As for the vets some good some bad. Good luck tonight!
February 23rd, 2008 at 11:01 am
The power play is about 1 for the last 42 and about 2 for the last 87, but the same old combo’s go out all the time. And usually the first line PP is out for at least 1.75 to 2 minutes, leaving virtually nothing for the second unit. The famous quote “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”. Well it is very broken so fix it. Mix it up. Change it up. Hello.
Big Snake on the PP is another anomaly. The guy is a fighter not a PP specialist. If the coach is going by his Owen Sound
days where he put up some numbers, hello, we don’t have the likes of a Bobby Ryan, Brad Richardson or Stephan Ruzicka for him to play with on this team. Great coaching.
There are several players with atrocious plus/minuses and take stupid penalties all the time. The coach keeps putting them out there game in and game out. It seems that there is no discipline for poor play in this regard especially if you are one of the pet favorites. It seems the discipline process is for certain individuals only. It seems there is no reward system either for good play unless you are one of the pet favorites. Its no wonder these players don’t want to play for the coach.
One way to get a slumping player out of his scoring slump. Sit him, (last night “coaching decision”), don’t play him on the PP (Thursday night), bench most of the game (3 games ago). Famous quote to back that up, priceless…”He’s hit a wall, there’s no question. And it’s our job to push him through that wall or over the wall or whatever to get him scoring again.” Bonar must have a sore head being shoved into the steel wall Fixter is trying to put him through. Not a tactic a professional coach should be using to get a player out of a slump.
My opinion with this team, is a couple of the vets run the show and are very far up the you know coaches what. The coach relies heavily on the vet talent. The problem is these vets are in the sunset of their careers and have a limited skill set. Its time to develop the young guns talent and skill set. The old ones aren’t making it happen. A good coach would have seen this many many games ago. I question the development attitude of this coach.
Time for the coach to look at himself and do a system check of his own. I put blame to the players at 20%, the rest is blamed on the coach at 80%.
This is my first (actually second, I posted one last night but it was under review by the moderator), time I have posted on this blog. I have watched this team grow over the last 4+ years. I am a Canadian living my twilight years in the great state of Texas. I love hockey. I played hockey up to Junior (Calgary Centennials) and a bit of semi pro stuff. I love the Killer Bees. One thing this coach and I agree on is it is just a game and we are both fortunate to have played it. Tragedy puts things into perspective.
Words of advice. Treat all the players equally and with respect and they will reward you to the nth degree. If you lose that pack up your bags or change your direction in life.
February 23rd, 2008 at 12:42 pm
They seemed to play really hard for 1 and a half periods i saw energy ,passion and a desire to win. I cant remember the last time i saw rob play with that much intensity it was awesome for a while. Good luck tonight if they play the way they did in the first period they will win.
February 23rd, 2008 at 6:36 pm
I thought I heard Weitzels name called for an assist on the 3rd goal last night by the rink announcer but it did not show on the scoring sheet.
Why would this be?