Muskies blitz visiting TimberWolves

It was like a pinball game at times—and the Pelican Falls TimberWolves were begging for the “tilt” sign to illuminate. Instead, it was they who were lit up by a goal-crazed black-and-gold squad.
The Muskie boys’ hockey team shellacked the TimberWolves 17-2 on Friday night and again 17-1 on Saturday afternoon at the Ice for Kids Arena to run their NorWOSSA record to 3-0.
“We don’t want to be taking anybody lightly,” Muskie head coach Shane Bliss said after the two-game massacre, which continued Fort High’s dominance from last season against Pelican Falls when they went 4-0 against the TimberWolves while outscoring them 63-5.
“You can’t turn it on and off like a switch. There’s going to be some tougher challenges down the road and it’s hard to just turn it up a notch like that,” Bliss reasoned.
Pelican Falls—whom Bliss said played well in the pre-season tournament in Dryden—came into the weekend with both a talent and manpower disadvantage as five of their regulars were out of the line-up.
That left them in no shape to contend with the high-energy Muskies, who fattened their scoring statistics by feasting on the TimberWolves’ numerous mistakes and mounting fatigue.
“The young guys on our team continue to impress me,” remarked Bliss, who mentioned forwards Tyler Miller and Brock Benjamin as well as defencemen Jordy Bale and Alex McQuarrie to illustrate his point.
“They came out with a lot of jump and enthusiasm,” he noted. “Sometimes, they’ll make mistakes by flying around like they do, but I’ll take that kind of enthusiasm any day.”
A sign that it wasn’t going to be the TimberWolves’ weekend came early in Friday night’s contest. Pelican Falls goalie Rodney Kejick gloved Josh Sigurdson’s shot, then promptly turned around and accidentally dropped it into his own net at 1:23 of the first period to open the floodgates.
Before the period was over, Sigurdson had scored again—as did Steven Sus, David Pierce, Matt Redford, Miller, and Lucas Romaniuk—en route to a 7-0 lead.
Jonathon Kejick finally gave the TimberWolves something to cheer about, drilling a shot past Muskie goalie Jason Green with 13 seconds left in the period to breathe the tiniest bit of life into Pelican Falls.
But the Muskie attack was relentless, tacking on another six goals in the second with Benjamin, Pierce, McQuarrie, Justin Larson, Mike Niskala, and Kurtis Wepruk causing the damage.
Kejick got his second tally of the game for the TimberWolves to make it 13-2 after 40 minutes.
The final period was played with running time, but it mattered little to the Muskies. Pierce notched a pair to close a four-goal night—his best outing ever in a black-and-gold jersey—while Sus and Terry Kellar added.
Brian White aided Fort High’s cause with four assists.
Saturday afternoon’s red-light symphony took somewhat more time to reach its full crescendo.
Niskala, Larson, and Kellar helped the Muskies forge a 3-0 lead after the first period. But Pelican Falls’ hopes of pulling off an incredible upset were carried away in an eight-goal wave in just over 11 minutes in the latter stages of the second.
Wepruk, Sus, and Pierce all scored twice in the middle session, with Greg Flewelling and Kellar adding singles.
The third was virtually the same story, with Miller netting a pair, Pierce completing his hat trick to grab the team goal-scoring lead with seven, and Romaniuk, Niskala, and Flewelling notching singles.
Grade 9 goalie Cody Wood was less than two minutes away from a shutout in his NorWOSSA debut but Kejick broke in alone and avoided Wood’s pokecheck to slide the puck in at 18:08.
“I told him to pokecheck if there was any type of breakaway,” chuckled Bliss. “I guess that’s why I’m not a goaltending coach.”
Now it’s on to Morden, Man. this weekend for the second of five tournament appearances this season for the Muskies, who won the consolation final at this event last year.
“We’ve got to go out there and use our speed,” stressed Bliss. “There’s going to be bigger teams than us, but I’ve seen big teams lose to small teams before.”
The Muskies return to NorWOSSA action Nov. 25 in Dryden against the NorWOSSA champion Eagles.
Their next home game is an exhibition clash with their cross-border rivals, the International Falls Broncos, on Tuesday, Dec. 2 at the Ice for Kids Arena.