Coming off of a ugly 6-0 loss to the Dawson Creek Sr. Canucks Thursday night, the Fort St. John Senior Flyers came into Saturday night’s game against the Manning Comets determined to show up and perform much better. The Flyers did exactly that, looking like a different team, beating Manning 7-1.
“Our compete level was a thousand times better than what it was Thursday night. It’s a different team than who we played Thursday, but we did a lot of good things, I was happy with what happened and the guys looked a lot better,” said Flyers head coach Andrew Leriger.
The win puts the Flyers one point behind the Sr. Canucks for first place in the West Division of the North Peace Hockey League. The Flyers held their annual teddy bear toss at the game, and fans littered the ice with stuffed animals after Jeff Fast scored five minutes in.
Jordan Harder scored two more goals in the first to make it 3-0.
The Flyers took it up a notch in the second period, and seemed at times to not leave the Comets’ zone for five minutes at a time. Steven Fast scored two minutes in, and Rick Cleaver scored off of a beautiful pass from Jeff Shipton to make it 5-0. Dan Pappin also scored in the frame, making the score 6-0 heading into the third.
Robbie Sidhu scored in the third period off a nice give-and-go play from Lien Miller-Jeannotte and Rylan Sideroff to put the Flyers up 7-0. The Comets scored with six minutes left, breaking Travis McLean’s shutout, but that was all Manning would muster.
McLean was great, although he didn’t have a busy night as the Comets were outshot 51-17.
The Flyers head to Manning Dec. 15 for a rematch against the Comets.
sports@ahnfsj.ca
