ORLANDO, FLA – School day morning games have become the norm in minor league hockey. The noise that several thousand school children can make takes getting used to if you are sitting in the stands. However, if you happen to be one of the players on the home team, all the commotion makes it easy to get amped up.
The Orlando Solar Bears and Jacksonville Icemen played in front of an announced School Day crowd of more than 8,000 Tuesday morning.
Just ask Troy Bourke and his Orlando Solar Bear teammates.
Playing in his Amway Center debut, Bourke scored twice and added two assists as the Solar Bears (6-3-1-0) posted a hard fought 7-4 win over the Jacksonville Icemen (6-2-0-0) in front of an announced crowd of 8,153 Tuesday morning. Hunter Fejes, Mike Monfredo, Corey Kalk and Vincent Dunn all chipped in with a goal and an assist each as eleven Orlando players registered at least one point.
“I loved it. I don’t mind the A.M. games. You wake up [and] you play a game,” Bourke, who was assigned to Orlando by AHL Syracuse last week, said. “I thought it was awesome. The fans were awesome. The kids were probably having a good time so they made it fun for me definately.”
It did not take long for the fun to start for the Solar Bears. Just 1:48 after the opening faceoff, Brent Pedersen saw a wide open Mathieu Foget in the faceoff circle to the left of Jacksonville goalie. Mikhail Berdin. Foget first shot was blocked but the rebound came right back and Foget snapped it short side past Berdin’s glove for his second goal of the season.
Orlando netminder Martin Ouellette faced his first serious threat when Jacksonville had a two-man advantage soon after. He stretched out with his left leg pad to deny the Icemen’s Wacey Rabbit on two rapid fire chances in close.
Ouellette was not so lucky later on in the opening period when Rabbit bested him during a Solar Bears power play. After a shot block by Dan DeSalvo, Rabbit ran down the puck in the neutral zone and broke in on the Orlando net. He made a spin move in the low slot and was able to tuck the puck between the goalie’s glove hand and body for his fifth of the year and a short-handed goal to boot.
The home team took the lead for good before the first intermission. Berdin, who was returned to Jacksonville by the Manitoba Moose on Monday, went behind the net to play the puck. Brady Shaw hustled in to confront Berdin, forcing a turnover before feeding Bourke for an easy tap-in with the net empty for his first goal in a Solar Bears uniform.
The Solar Bears bumped their lead to 3-1 a little over five minutes into the second period when the rookie Kalk netted his first professional goal and point. The key play came from Dunn, who took a feed from Monfredo and found Kalk with a perfect cross-ice feed on the backside of the play. Before Berdin could react, Kalk collected the pass and ripped a shot into the open side of the net.
“It was absolutely an unbelieveable pass by Dunner. I didn’t have to do anything. I just had to put it in the net,” Kalk said. “It was an unbelieveable pass through two sticks right on my tape for a backdoor [goal]. It was basically an empty net. It was an amazing pass. It was great to get the first one off and hopefullyI can continue with the success.”
A little past the midpoint of the frame, the Solar Bears power play got back on the board. Fejes started the sequence with a pass to the front of the net. It took a redirection right to Bourke who buried the puck in the back of the net for his second of the game.
“It’s awesome. It’s someone they can look to to see what it takes to go play in the American league (AHL),” Orlando Head Coach and General Manager Drake Berehowsky said when asked about the influence Bourke and Mitch Hults, another Syracuse player who was assigned to the Solar Bears for a couple of games, provide. “The way he’s playing right now, he probably won’t be here too much longer. We’re happy while he’s here but at the same time for the organization we always want to push our guys forward and get them to the next level and as a player that’s what you want to do as well.”
Jacksonville refued to give in and began an attempt to make a comeback. Early in the third, Justin Woods took advantage of a lapse in focus to sneak a shot from a bad angle past Ouellette to cut the deficit to 4-2 with more than sixteen minutes still left in regulation.
Less than five minutes later, the Solar Bears restored their three goal margin. Again it was what many might consider Orlando’s top line doing the work as Bourke set up Fejes at the corner of the net for a flip in for Fejes’ team leading eighth goal and Bourke’s third point of the game.
“The speed of Feej and the heads-up thinking of Shawsy is a good combination,” Bourke said about his linemates. “They created a lot for me tonight. We could have had a few more I thought too but it’s fun playing with them. They think the game well and that a big part of their game so that helps me out.”
The Icemen again trimmed the margin to three when Everett Clark pinballed a shot off a skate during a Jacksonville power play for his fourth of the season at the 12:29 mark. That was answered by a man advantage score by Orlando’s Dunn, who collected the rebound of a shot by Tayler Thompson in close and deftly flicked a shot over Berdin for his third goal of the season.
Right after Dunn’s tally, Jacksonville head coach Jason Christie pulled Berdin (36 saves) for an extra attacker. The strategy paid off when Dajon Mingo got loose in the slot to fire home his second of the season off a rebound of a shot by Cameron Critchlow. Monfredo capped the scoring in the final minute, firing the puck from the slot in his own defensive end into the vacated Icemen cage for his first of the season. Bourke picked up his second assist and fourth point on the goal.
Asked about the balanced scoring and contributions from throughout the lineup, Berehowsky said that he is pleased that all ten forwards who dress on any given night are chipping in.
“We don’t have a one or two or three line. We have ten forwards and they all contribute defensively and offensively. As long as they do that, they’ll get their opportunities,” Berehowsky said. “Defense I believe wins championships and we have to be real stingy back there and if you do that I think you create your offensive chances from there. All three lines, all ten forwards are doing that right now. It’s great to be able to put guys in the lineup and everybody’s contributing.”
The Solar Bears now head out on a five game, nine day road trip that starts Saturday in South Carolina and winds its way through the northeast corridor. Kalk said that he expects Orlando to take things one game at a time. He added that he has some personal incentive to look forward to the trip as well.
“We play a lot of games in a short period of time so it’s a lot of hockey. You’ve just got to control what we can control and try to get some good wins on the road here,” he said. “It’s the closest game I play to home (Thornhill, Ontario) so hopefully a lot of my family will be up for that week. I’m getting excited for that.”
Notes: Orlando outshot Jacksonville 42-31 in the contest… The Icemen went 1-for-5 on the power play while the Solar Bears were 1-for-6… Ouellette finished the game with 27 saves to post his fifth win of the season… Bourke now has a three game point streak, picking up two goals and six assists since joining the Solar Bears last Wednesday. Pedersen (6 games), Cody Donaghey (4 games), Shaw (2 games) and Fejes (2 games) all extended point streaks as well… Orlando is now 5-0-0-0 in games they held the lead heading into the third period… Jacksonville will head home to host its School Day game Thursday morning against South Carolina at 10:30 a.m.
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