PEORIA, IL – – Forty minutes of hockey interrupted by 104 days.
On October 25, 2014, the Huntsville Havoc were guests of the Peoria Rivermen, and the game began like this…
A bad pass set the Havoc up early in the first period. Eric Alexander cashed in on the pressure, sending the puck past Kyle Rank for the early 1-0 lead. Philip Wendecker and Nick Lazorko pocketed assists.
Jake Trask was stopped on a nifty backhanded shot but Josh Harris was standing next to the crease and buried the rebound to tie the game up at one-all 94 seconds later.
The Rivermen took a 2-1 lead just two minutes into the second period when Matt Summers tried a backhanded wrap-around. Huntsville goaltender Kevin Genoe stopped that, but the rebound bounced to Shawn Skelly in the slot, who roofed it to light the lamp.
The game took a nasty turn when Huntsville’s Justin Cseter caught a skate behind the net during a Havoc power play. He suffered a deep cut to his inner thigh. Trainers were on him almost immediately as he lay in the slot. Several other medical professionals were soon on the ice. The scene was macabre, with a large pool of blood and Peoria backup goaltender Eric Levine holding an IV. A fan on the glass in Section 24 collapsed.
With this incident, the game was suspended with 13:37 left in the second period. On February 7, 2015, the game was resumed. Eric Alexander, Nick Lazorko and Phillip Wendecker are no longer with Huntsville and Shawn Skelly is no longer with the Rivermen. Both Mike Gurtler and Nick Wheeler will be on the ice, though they will have switched sides.
In fact, Wheeler was serving a penalty for the Rivermen when the game was suspended. He was forced to serve out the rest of his penalty in the Huntsville box. The Rivermen were forced to send a man to the box to serve out the team side of that penalty, as well.
At least the referee, Sean Fernandez, and the goalies, Kyle Rank and Kevin Genoe, are the same.
Dan Bremner would add an empty net goal at the end to make the game 3-1.
Genoe stopped 20 of 22 shots in the loss. Rank stopped 22 of 23 shots to earn his 20th win of the season.
The two teams faced off again for the regularly scheduled game about 30 minutes later.
Contact the author at Shaun.Bill@ProHockeyNews.com or follow him on Twitter @SLBatPHN
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