KNOXVILLE, TENN – In the time that the Southern Professional Hockey League has been in existence, no team has been more dominant than the Knoxville Ice Bears. Saturday night, the Ice Bears added yet another notch to their belt.
Led by two goals and an assist by Eric Satim and the steady play of playoff Most Valuable Player Bryan Hince, the Ice Bears won their fourth President’s Cup championship by defeating the Mississippi RiverKings 4-2. The victory gave Knoxville a sweep of the best-of-three game series.
Satim started the scoring early in the first period, converting a Mississippi turnover into an odd-man rush and beating RiverKings goalie Peter DiSalvo with a shot from the left circle. It was the only score of a defensive-minded frame where DiSalvo stopped eleven shots while Hince turned away seven Mississippi chances.
Knoxville doubled its lead 8:18 into the second when Francis Drolet stayed with the play long enough to pop a second rebound chance home. Ben Power and Satim picked up assists on the score. Mississippi cut the margin in half when Daniel Sabotka sent Matt Whitehead in on a breakaway and Whitehead beat Hince with a shot from the netminder’s left. Satim restored his team’s two-goal lead at the 15:12 mark when he again scored on an odd-man rush. Power and Drolet both picked up their second points of the night on the play.
It would be more than enough for Hince, who once again was playing at the top of his game. He stopped 15 RiverKings shots in the second and held off another barrage of chances in the final frame. When Matthew Paton scored an unassisted empty net goal at the 18:39 mark, it all but sealed the Ice Bears victory. Mike Grace did pull Mississippi within two with a goal at the 19:00 mark but it was too little, too late for the RiverKings who were forced to play the championship series on the road due to ice availability issues at home.
In earning MVP honors, Hince went 5-0 in the post season with a 2.17 goals against average and a .938 save percentage.
The championship was the third for head coach Mike Craigen, who won two titles as a player for the Ice Bears. The title was extra sweet for Craigen whose father Rob was in his first season as the team’s head equipment manager.
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