Hawks Lay Egg, But Come Through In The Clutch…(December 27th, 2013)

After having all league games, and several practices, lost to weather related cancellations since their Championship run in Tri-County, the Hawks arrived in Harland on December 27^th to play their first game of the CMHA Atom Tournament against the Woodstock Warriors. It was their first game action in nearly 3-weeks; which was of no small concern to the coaching staff not knowing how the extended layoff would impact a team that was on such a roll. As one would expect, the Hawks came out of the gate slow, and relied heavily on Justin Chronkite to turn away quality chances by Woodstock in the 1^st period, but he was finally solved with 8:00 minutes left putting the Hawks down 1-0. Duncan Christie managed to answer two minutes later, and it seemed, momentarily, to breathe life into the Hawks. In particular, her Captain, Will Shaw, who scored two goals a mere 20-seconds apart to put the score at 3-1 with under 2-minutes to go in the first frame. The momentum was short lived, however, as the Warriors found the net with 1:12 to go in the first, and carried that over into the second by scoring the lone goal of the period at 5:01 to even things up at 3-3. After more of the same in the 3^rd, the Warriors appeared to deal the Hawks the death blow with but 4:33 to play in the game on the strength of Andrew Watson’s of the hat trick goal.

The Hawks, displaying the gritty character that has been their hallmark all season, responded to the challenge! Will Shaw and Duncan Christie combined to put extreme pressure on Woodstock’s net in the final minutes and were rewarded when Duncan’s shot was seemingly caught, but then bobbled into the net, by the Warrior goaltender with a mere 1:37 left to play. Not done there, Will Shaw lifted the team to victory on the strength of his own hat trick goal with only 60 seconds remaining on the clock (assist from Keaton MacPhee). I’m sure you could hear the huge sigh of relief from the coaching staff all the way to Nackawic when the final buzzer sounded!

Game MVP went to Captain Will Shaw, and the Hard Hat to Austin Mill who was an absolute rock from the point in this important contest.