St. Catharines Mountainview Homes Falcons

GOALS BY PERIOD

Falcons win double OT thriller!

17-Mar-2006 · 10:30pm

The neighbouring Thorold Blackhawks showed up to a packed Jack Gatecliff Arena Friday night to kick off Game #1 of the best-of-seven semifinal series against the St. Catharines Mountainview Homes Falcons.

Falcons forward Mike Chmielewski scored his 5th goal of the playoffs to open the scoring of the 2nd round playoff series. Chmielewski beat Blackhawks goaltender Sean Ramanauskas at the 3:54 mark of the first period. Nick Petriello and Jamie Heywood added assists on the first goal of the game.

Nathan Spaling of Thorold tied the game 1-1 on a power-play goal at 18:28 of the same period. Steve Chappell and David Cianfrini assisted on the goal that beat Falcons netminder Sean Hall. The Blackhawks owned the period on shots, recording 12, while the Falcons took 9 in the first period.

Chris Risi gave Thorold a 2-1 lead on Thorold's second power-play goal of the game. After Falcons forward Nick Petriello was ejected for a questionable 5 minute kneeing penalty at 9:15 of the second period, the Blackhawks used the man-advantage to jump ahead of the Falcons for the first time of the game. Steve Zmudczynski and Steve Chappell recorded assists on the goal.

Thorold lead in shots for the second period as well, taking 14 against Falcons goalie Sean Hall, while Thorold's Sean Ramanauskas faced a disappointing four shots from St. Catharines.

The Falcons tied up the game midway through the third period on a power-play goal from St. Catharines captain Kelsey Blinkorn at the 9:45 minute mark. Jamie Heywood and Chris Stevenson notched assists on the goal to make it 2-2 with 10:15 left in the period.

The game could not be decided within the allotted 60 mintes and pushed over into a 10 minute sudden-death overtime period. A few penalties were called during the extra period, giving both teams each a chance on the man-advantage. Nothing could be settled in the extra ten minute overtime period and the two teams skated into the dressing room while the ice was cleaned and flooded.

Thorold and St. Catharines hit the ice for the second overtime period both eager to slip a shot past the other goaltender. Mike Dahms had the best chance to score the game winner just over two minutes into the second overtime period when he hit the post off a blistering slapshot. The Falcons hit another post three minutes later off a Thorold deflection.

Mike Dahms hit one post in the second overtime period, but he didn't hit it on his second chance! Dahms put away the unassisted double overtime winner at the 7:00 mark to notch his third goal of the playoffs. What a great finish to a great game!

Sean Hall stopped 39 of 41 shots from Thorold for the win, while the Blackhawks netminder turned away 26 of 29 shots for the loss.

Up next, the Falcons travel to Thorold for Game #2 of the semifinal series Monday night. The puck drops in Thorold at 7:30pm.

Game #3 is set for Tuesday night inside the Jack Gatecliff Arena. Game time is a special time of 7:00pm sharp!