Lucas Punkari
With two-straight losses to Kenora to close out the NorWOSSA regular season etched into their memory, the Muskie boys’ hockey team was hoping to get back on the right track Friday night against the International Falls Broncos at the Ice For Kids Arena here.
After more than 60 minutes of hard-hitting action between the border rivals, a point shot from Brett McMahon found the back of the net in overtime to give the black-and-gold a thrilling 2-1 exhibition triumph and help erase any bitter taste of defeat the team had left over from the Kenora losses.
“That felt awesome,” McMahon said after the game.
“I’ve never scored a goal like that before, so to be able to do it in a game like this, especially in front of the student section, was really cool,” he added.
“I thought the third period and the overtime was the best that our team has played since we were in Duluth,” noted Muskie head coach Shawn Jourdain.
“The first period I thought was pretty good, but we got into a lot of trouble there in the second,” he recalled.
“From then on, we just got the puck in deep—and we’re one of the best teams below the goal line once we get the puck there,” Jourdain added.
Following a scoreless opening frame, both teams had chances to take the lead in the second before the Broncos lit the lamp with a few minutes left prior to intermission.
Christian Kittelson made some nice moves into the slot area before sliding the puck over to Lucas DeBenedet, who beat Muskie goalie Devin Stromness.
With the Muskie student section screaming their support down to the players, Fort High came out on fire in the early part of the third, with Chris Bobczynski putting a backhander past Glenn Walls to knot things up at 1-1.
“The hardest part of my job is to just keep the guys in check with the atmosphere in the crowd,” Jourdain explained.
“In the second period, I think the guys got a little too keyed up out there,” he admitted. “But in the third, we were able to keep that energy under control and play with a positive emotion.”
The rest of the third period saw both teams fly around the ice at a furious pace as they tried to notch the game-winner.
The Broncos had a golden opportunity with just under three minutes to go but a wide-open Kittelson watched his shot from the slot sail over the net to keep things tied up.
“Christian was feeling pretty bad about missing that one,” Broncos’ head coach Mike Bolstad said after the game.
“But you don’t want a kid happy about missing a shot like that, you want to see him a little upset,” he reasoned.
After regulation time solved nothing, both teams headed to an eight-minute overtime period. If a game-winner wasn’t scored in the extra period, the game would end in a draw.
But with just over two minutes left, McMahon fired a shot from the point that found the top corner of the net to give his team the victory—and send his teammates and the partisan Muskie fans on hand into full delirium.
“It was a great shot to win the game,” Bolstad said afterwards.
“I don’t think anybody is a loser in game like this,” he added.
“It was a good, fun, hard-fought game between the Muskies and the Broncos once again.”
The win came just days after the Muskie dropped their NorWOSSA regular-season finale to Kenora 3-2 in a shootout—marking the first time the northern Broncos had won at the Ice For Kids Arena since the 2006 NorWOSSA final.
“I went home after the game [last] Tuesday night and thought about it, and all in all we out-chanced them,” Jourdain recalled.
“We outshot them by a wide margin, and we had eight or nine quality scoring chances in the slot, but we just weren’t able to score,” he noted.
Citing the third period versus the Falls as a momentum builder, Jourdain hopes his team can continue to carry that over into the NorWOSSA playoffs.
The first-place Muskie open their best-of-three semi-final series against the fourth-place Red Lake Rams here this Saturday (Feb. 26) at 7:15 p.m.
“We don’t want to look past anybody,” Jourdain stressed.
“We just want to get through that series healthy and strong, get the two wins, and move onto the next series,” he remarked.
Second-place Kenora squares off against the third-place Dryden Eagles in the other semi-final.
