Joey Payeur
With or without an accompanying soundtrack, Max Williams is dangerous in a short-handed situation.
Williams lit the lamp twice while the Muskie boys’ hockey team was a man down as part of Fort High’s 9-0 shutout of the visiting Kenora Broncos in NorWOSSA action Tuesday night.
The Muskies’ first game after capturing the John Taylor Piper Classic Tournament of Champions over the weekend featured multiple times when the music during stoppages in play was left on for extended stretches after the puck dropped.
One of those times came at 18:27 of the first as Williams busted loose on a breakaway with Hunter Koles in the box for slashing.
Williams squeaked a shot through Broncos’ goalie Lucas Brown to make it 2-0 with the vocal styling of Ariana Grande streaming through the loudspeakers.
The song? “Break Free,” of course.
“I’m thinking, ‘OK, I’ve got the puck and there’s music playing . . . guess I’ll just keep going’,” grinned the veteran blueliner, who ended Brown’s night at 13:59 of the second with another short-handed tally he fired low to the stick side after a scrambled draw just four seconds into Chase McGuire’s cross-checking minor.
“‘Shorty’ [Spencer Shortreed] tied them up and I just walked in and shot it,” noted Williams.
Justin Bishop took over between the pipes and held Fort High at bay for the rest of the period.
But that all changed in the third as the first-place Muskies (11-1) lift up the relief goalie for five tallies, one of which was the first career goal in black-and-gold for defenceman Colton Bodnar.
“It’s a great night and I just thank [head coach] Jamie Davis for asking me to come out,” said Bodnar, a call-up from the Fort Bantam ‘AA’ Canadians who zipped the puck from the right circle.
“I had been throwing it at the net all night and one finally decided to hit the back of the net,” he noted.
McGuire, Sully Shortreed (on a deflection of his brother, Spencer’s, point shot), Tyler VanUden, and Jarred Taylor had the other goals in the third.
Matt Cheetham had opened the scoring in the first while Spencer Shortreed made it 3-0 in the second.
Jordan Carlson was busier than one would expect in a blowout, making several saves to preserve what was his third-straight.
“It came in spurts tonight,” noted Carlson, whose best effort was early in the third when he stopped Colton Yaremko’s one-timer and then slammed the door on Logan Ginn’s rebound chance.
“Kenora came out stronger than expected,” he added.
“We hadn’t played them in a while,” Carlson said. “But we try to wear down teams with our speed and they had nothing left in the tank.”
The Muskies virtually can lock up top spot with a win tonight against the second-place Sioux Lookout Warriors (9-3).
Game time is 7:15 p.m. at the Ice For Kids Arena.
