View From The Ice

by Brett Holmes
November 27 1997

Our first tournament of the season almost one week ago, Thursday in Kitscoty, was sure to be a tough one. This tournament was for tier I teams (a level higher than what we are) and our first game was played against Marwayne.
Marwayne had a line and one other extra person than us (15), but I guess that isn’t very unusual after playing all of our games like that. Most of us out of breath, and by taking a long shift often meant a good deed for our teammates.
A ways into the first period it was still 0-0 until Carroll passed up to Holmes who tipped the pass up to Ganser flying between two Marwayne players. Ganser lost the two defensemen and skated in on a breakaway, the goaltender left his legs wide open to allow ‘Buster’ to score. Provost led 1-0.
But before the period was over, Marwayne scored three goals, at least two of them on breakaways. If we made a mistake Marwayne was there to collect the puck and get a good scoring chance, and things were not going good for us that night; passes hitting the skates, offsides, and our defensive clearing was not good at all.
Moncrieff made our team a little shorter for the next ten minutes after getting a misconduct.
Marwayne added to their lead right away. But then seconds after the next faceoff at center ice Holmes carried it in and lost it in the corner, Ganser came and picked up the loose puck to pass it to Adams who came off the point for a nice one-timer.
A few minutes into the third period Benoit and Glencross set up Provost’s best goal of the game. Benoit passed it to Glencross who looked to be wide open, but then he quickly slipped the puck across to the other side of the crease to find Benoit.

Minutes later the score was 11-7 with just four minutes to play in the game, Provost scored two shorthanded goals just seconds apart.
We got ourselves within two goals of tying it. You could never guess what was going to happen next in this game.
But just before our player got out of the box a Marwayne player picked the corner of the net to deflate us.
With two minutes remaining and three goals down, it seemed almost impossible to catch them. 12-9 was how it ended. Our first lost of the season. But it could have went either way, no lie, we could’ve beat this tier I team if it weren’t for our careless play in our end.
Provost scoreboard;
First Period-
Ganser (Carroll, Holmes); Moncrieff (Glencross).
Second Period-
Sorby (Ganser); Benoit (Adams); Adams (Ganser, Holmes); Benoit (Stempfle, Glencross).
Third Period-
Benoit (Glencross, Paulgaard); Paulgaard (Ganser, Holmes); Benoit (Sorby, Glencross).
Our next game of the tournament was two days later on Saturday against Kerrobert.
At nine in the morning I wondered how good this team really was. In the past few years we have had some close games with these guys. And now they were a tier 1 team.
They came on to the ice and they were big. They were big, yet clumsy.
We had no trouble scoring first, Landmark gathered a pass from Benoit and fired into a small opening.
Unlike last game, all the bounces were going to our advantage. We had the pressure on in their end for quite a while and by the halfway mark of the first period it was 2-0 in Provost’s favor.
Kerrobert scored with just a minute remaining in the first but we had already scored enough before that. By the end of the first period it was 5-1 after getting at least two points from Benoit, Glencross and Adams. Benoit scored one on a breakaway but the majority of goals coming from the goal mouth.
And of course we couldn’t let this blowout opportunity go away. We scored just 25 seconds into the second, Benoit striking again, this time for the hat trick.
Thirteen seconds after Benoit’s goal, Holmes who’s been getting chances all night went in on a short breakaway only to put away a snapshot.
Kerrobert then fought back just a little bit, and they scored their final goal, number two.
Holmes again, on a breakaway came down the other side this time to slapshot the puck in the net.
Stempfle also did some nice work down in their end, working the puck from behind the net.
Stempfle, Glencross and Benoit each came up with at least four points this game.
Provost scoreboard:
First Period-
Landmark (Benoit); Glencross (Benoit, Sorby); Benoit (Glencross, Adams); Benoit (unassisted); Glencross (Adams).
Second Period-
Benoit (Stempfle, Glencross); Holmes (Paulgaard, Ganser); Holmes (Glencross, Paulgaard); Glencross (unassisted); Stempfle (Benoit, Glencross); Paulgaard (Ganser).
Third Period-
Benoit (Stempfle); Moncrieff (Stempfle, Glencross).
Due to the space remaining in the paper I cannot go into detail.
Not much to comment on in this game anyway other than it was similar to the last one. But we should’ve beat them by more.
Vermilion had eight more players than what we had.
Sometimes in the game we were in trouble but we were in command for most of it.
Provost scoreboard:
First Period-
Paulgaard (Ganser, Holmes); Benoit (Sorby, Holmes); Stempfle (unassisted); Stempfle (Glencross, Carroll); Benoit (Stempfle).
Second Period-
Benoit (Stempfle); Glencross (Benoit); Sorby (Benoit, Stempfle); Glencross (Benoit); Glencross (Stempfle, Benoit); Benoit (Paulgaard).
Third Period- Stempfle (Glencross).

The semifinal of the Kitscoty Tournament had Provost playing Meadow Lake, an “AA” team, as I can recall.
Most of the play went back and forth. Sometimes we’d really apply the pressure and then we knew a goal had to come, but Meadow Lake just came back and scored on their very next shot.
That’s the way it’s been going for us for most of the weekend.
It was a pretty physical game, body’s flying all over. When we play more physical I think we play better in all aspects of the game.
We could’ve won this game. It’s just they got goals, not all at once, slowly, and they all added up to ten.
We had a little more energy at the beginning of the third when Benoit scored his second of the game off of Holmes’ rebound, and then Holmes scored nine seconds later on a two-on-one pass from Glencross.
A few more bodies for us would’ve helped after Paulgaard got injured from a hit.
In this game, Meadow Lake had two lines more than us and that sure hurt us.
Although losing out in the semifinal, you’ve got to remember this was a tier 1 tournament.
Provost scoreboard:
First Period-
Benoit (Sorby, Landmark).
Second Period-
Glencross (Sorby).
Third Period- Benoit (Holmes, Glencross); Holmes (Glencross, Benoit).
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