Mar 12, 2013 | khussey | 1406 views
Midget's Showing Their Character
Howick remained focused and battled hard to the final buzzer in a 5-3 defeat to Lucknow Monday night. A blown call by the official and an unneccessary game ejection handed out to a Hornet player by the same short fused official could have been enough to put any team into a tail spin that could have lead to this game getting out of hand emotionally and on the score board.
With both teams playing a solid and entertaining game in the opening frame Howick was able to light the red light first on a Craig Devries goal with the helper going to Ben Devlin.
Then early in the second with the referee trailing away to far behind the play, a one on one rush developed that lead to Mulder making a fine save. With the puck out of view of the official he whistled the play down. Moments later the Lucknow player began celebrating as the puck had slowly dribbled it's way through Mulder at some point, either off the original shot or well after the play had been whistled down. Either way, the Referee had blown the play dead. Immediately the Official then changed his call and signaled a goal.
Coach Hussey sent a team rep to ask for clarification on the call. Shortly after with emotions running high from the recent events the player rep was ejected. First receiving a unsportsmanlike, then a 10 misconduct and then without anything to warrant, a game misconduct. In coach Hussey's opinion the game misconduct was simply a result of a short fused official on a power trip. This was clearly evident when the same official threatened to eject Hussey at the end of the second period as they were leaving the ice for the intermission when Hussey calmly asked for a clarification on the allowed goal and that proper protocol was used in doing so and on the manner inwhich he handled the ejection of the team rep.
Even with all this Howick trailed by only 3-2 at the end of the second as Jason Burbidge fired a backhander over the Lucknow tender late in the middle frame with the assist going to Devlin.
Eventhough Lucknow uped their lead at one point to three goals the peasky Hornets would give in as Burbidge fired his second of the game with 5:46 remaining. Mitchell Baillie received the assist on this goal with a solid pass up to Burbidge. Allowing for plenty of time to continue to mount their comeback. With the goalie out opportunities presented themselves, but the Sepoys goaltender was stellar in the final couple of minutes to hang on to the victory for Lucknow.