There was ample opportunity for the Fort Frances Taggs Bantam ‘AA’ hockey team to clean up at the Steel City International Tournament in Sault Ste. Marie.
But a series of close-but-no-cigar situations left Taggs on the outside looking in when it came to advancing to the tournament playoffs—by a mere goal.
“We’ve had hard luck all year, but the guys keep plugging away,” said Taggs head coach Mark McCaig. “We could have won this tournament. We were as good as any of the teams there.”
Taggs started the weekend with a 4-2 loss to the Warren Park Eagles (Toronto). They fell behind 3-0 after the second period and couldn’t recover.
“We should have beat the Eagles,” said McCaig. “We controlled the game the whole way. We should have won it.”
Josh Klimuk, Adrian Baniak, Andrew Cheung, and Ryan Abu-Ali netted the Eagles’ goals while Jordan Davis and Andrew Easton replied with power-play markers for Taggs.
Against the Pino’s Titans (Sault Ste. Marie) in their next outing, Taggs had its chances but only managed Kyle Turgeon’s second-period goal in a 2-1 loss.
Cody Devoe and Joe Griffa scored 20 seconds apart a minute after Turgeon’s tally to give the Titans the win.
Fort Frances found its game the following day, beginning with a 5-3 win over the South End Rangers (Thunder Bay).
Justin Minoletti opened the scoring early in the first, but Easton followed that up 31 seconds later, assisted by Steven Boileau, to tie the game 1-1.
Easton set up Kevin Bobczynski for the go-ahead marker in the second, then scored himself later in the period to make it 3-1. After Brian Glavish increased the lead to three just 53 seconds later, Kyle MacLeod pared the gap to 4-2 just before the end of the session.
Devon Myers made a game of it late for the Rangers by scoring with 58 seconds left in regulation time, but Easton completed the hat trick with an empty-netter with 17 ticks on the clock to ice the victory.
“We handled the puck really well in that game,” said McCaig. “We did a lot of soul-searching after the first day and I’m proud of the way they responded.”
Needing to win by two goals to reach the playoffs, Taggs turned in another strong performance but fell just short of the medal round with a 3-2 win over the Blueliners/Blackhawks (Sault Ste. Marie).
Easton, Turgeon, and Danny Chapman scored for Fort Frances while Todd Hicks had both markers for Sault Ste. Marie.
The final game featured some chippy play and what McCaig termed as “significant” penalty calls against his team that he considered perhaps unwarranted.
“We lose Danny Chapman to a double minor and a 10-minute misconduct when one of their players runs him at our bench,” recalled McCaig. “We also lost Andrew [Easton] to a game misconduct.
“That really made things difficult for us.”
Ironically, the one-goal victory meant the Rangers, whom Taggs had beaten earlier, actually got into the playoff round based on a better goal differential.
Fort Frances Times
Local News from Across the Rainy River District
