KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – Knoxville Ice Bears Coach Mike Craigen was angry with his team’s performance in game one of the playoff series against the Mississippi RiverKings. The team listened and won the next two games and the series. Following game one of the SPHL President’s Cup semifinals Wednesday night, Craigen was probably searching his desk for the same post-game speech.
Four different players scored in support of Steve Christie’s 30-save performance in net as the fourth-seeded Pensacola Ice Flyers defeated third-seeded Knoxville 4-1 at the Knoxville Civic Coliseum. With the win in game one, the Ice Flyers can earn their first trip to the league finals with a win in game two Saturday in Pensacola.
From the outset, the Ice Bears wanted to physically intimidate the Ice Flyers and test Christie’s stamina with a flood of shots. They pounded Christie with four shots in the opening minutes of the game, including attempts by Kevin Swider, Mark Van Vliet and Jeremy Klaver that came within a six-second span. Christie stopped all of them, proving that his performance in the last series was not a fluke.
As the Ice Flyers started to push back, the tensions rose. Pensacola’s Ryan Hohl and Knoxville’s Mike Towns dropped the gloves at the 4:17 mark and two minutes later Christie got tangled up with Ice Bear David Segal with each getting a minor penalty. The tussles seemed to wake up the visitors as they began to pick up the offense with a pair of great opportunities that Knoxville netminder Kyle Rank turned away.
Midway through the period, Pensacola got the break it needed to start gaining control. Already on a power play thanks to a penalty to Ice Bear Kyle VanderMale, Swider took a tripping minor to put the Ice Flyers up two men. Pensacola only needed 14 seconds to capitalize when Donny Harris and Tyler Soehner traded passes at the point before Soehner let loose with a drive that rookie Jordan Chong tipped past Rank from in front of the net. It proved to be the lone score of the first period as Pensacola took that slim one-goal margin into the intermission.
The Ice Flyers continued to gain momentum in the second. Rank had to be sharp as he faced shots in clusters, first a Jeff Sapieha drive and a quick follow-up by Steve Bergin and then a trio of shots in a ten second span. With just one tick under four minutes gone in the frame, Pensacola struck for its second tally of the night. A defensive lapse by the Ice Bears resulted with the puck on Adam Kuhn’s stick while Hohl stood all alone in the slot. Kuhn fed the biscuit to Hohl who buried it in the back of the net to double the Ice Flyers lead.
The rest of the period was a back and forth struggle between the goalies. Christie was frustrating Knoxville, stopping everything the Ice Bears threw at him. Rank was also settling in, playing well and keeping his team in the contest.
Down two as the final twenty minutes began, the Ice Bears knew they needed something to get both themselves and their fans back into the game. Unfortunately for them it was the Ice Flyers who picked up the all important third goal when Matthew Robertson beak Rank 2:24 into the stanza. Staked to a three goal lead, Christie continued to dare Knoxville to beat him, every time denying them a score.
The Ice Bears did finally break up Christie’s bid for a second straight shutout when Tyler Fletcher redirected a shot from Van Vliet home with just over two minutes left in regulation and an extra attacker on the ice. It was too little, too late as Chris Wilson sealed the win for the Ice Flyers with an empty net goal less than a minute later.
Game Notes: Before the game, the Ice Bears honored former Knoxville News- Sentinel writer Nick Gates, who passed away at the age of 62 on Monday after a long illness. Gates was an integral part of promoting the SPHL through columns he contributed to The Hockey News during the league‘s formative years. In almost 40 years at the News-Sentinel, Gates covered the numerous hockey teams that called Knoxville home as well the Southern League’s Knoxville Smokies baseball team. Hours before his death, Gates was at the Knoxville Civic Center to watch the Ice Bears defeat the Mississippi RiverKings on Sunday afternoon. The Ice Bears raised a banner to the rafters in Gates’ honor as well as having a moment of silence. The banner along with a likeness of Gates that was added to the dashers at the Civic Coliseum following his retirement in 2010 “will remain as long as there is hockey in Knoxville” according to the team.
Contact the author at don.money@prohockeynews.com
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