Flyers 7 Generals 1
FORT ST. JOHN, B.C. — The Fort St. John Flyers were rude hosts Monday.
The Flyers, out to prove they’re the hosts with the most, knocked off the defending Canadian senior AAA hockey champion Bentley Generals 7-1 at the North Peace Arena in the opening game of the 2010 Allan Cup tournament for both teams.
“It was unbelievable. It was men against boys,” said Bentley general manager Jeff McInnis.
“It was just as bad as you could draw it, even worse. I’d like to say that we beat ourselves, but no, that’s a great team that they (Fort St. John) have assembled and they were hungrier than I’ve ever seen a team. I understand where their hunger was born — we beat them three years in a row (in the Alberta-B.C. MacKenzie Cup series).”
Former Kamloops Blazers sniper Rod Stevens opened the scoring with an unassisted power-play goal eight minutes into the game. David Alexander upped the count to 2-0 late in the period and Andrew Derton slipped a third puck past Generals netminder Scott Galenza midway through the second frame.
Alexander notched his second of the night — short-handed — at 18:40 to give the Flyers a 4-0 lead after 40 minutes. Bentley finally replied with a power-play tally from Darryl Laplante at 8:27 of the third period, but Fort St. John sealed the deal on goals from Stevens, former General Ryan Manitowich (power play) and Evan Boire.
Galenza made 33 saves, while Clayton Pool stopped 32 shots for the Flyers. The Flyers were two-for-10 on the power play. The Generals one-for 1-13 with a man advantage in the rugged, chippy match.
“They (Flyers) were very impressive and we weren’t very well prepared,” said McInnis. “We came in here like fat cats, thinking we were just going to roll, and obviously that’s not the case.”
The Generals are idle until Wednesday, when they face the Clarenvillle, Nfld., Caribous at 9 p.m. MDT. In today’s action, the Southeast Prairie Thunder of Manitoba take on the Dundas, Ont., Real McCoys at 3 p.m. and the Flyers go up against the Caribous at 9 p.m.
The first-place teams in the two three-team pools advance directly to Friday’s semifinals. The second- and third-place clubs will participate in cross-over quarter-finals Thursday. The championship game is set for 3 p.m. Saturday and will be shown on TSN2.
l In Monday’s earlier contest, the Prairie Thunder, who dropped a double-overtime decision to Bentley in last year’s Allan Cup final, doubled the Powell River, B.C., Regals 4-2, getting goals from Cory Baldwin, Dale Butland, Ryan Smith and Kyle Luschinski. Chris Tarr and Brent Shepheard replied for the Regals, who were outshot 44-27.