Golden Valley (Breck) – Sunday, January 24, 2010. Playing with a short bench, the Northern Horde fought off a sleepy first period to beat the Fighting Loons 6-2. In the first period, the Loons controlled the puck and kept it in the Horde end, but only managed two shots in the period against Pete Morrow who stopped one but let the other by at 10:18. After looking sluggish the rest of the period, Jon Nygren took a Chris Haack pass and buried it with authority to tie the game up. The second period was back and forth with no one scoring until Liam Monahan won the first face-off of his career right to Gary Speier who deposited the puck in the back of the net before Liam knew he won the face off. Finally, in the third period, after Dana Cudo left the Horde with 11 skaters, the team woke up from its slumber. Gary Speier opened the period with his second goal of the night set up by a strong defensive play by Suneel Arora. Then, Liam Monahan caught a nice pass into the slot from Jeff “I Can Pass Too” Nelson and beat Jon Scholten to put the Horde up 4-1. Five minutes later, Tyler LaMont sent a nice pass behind the Loons net to Chris Haack in the right corner who fed Jon Zimmerman for a one-timer. After giving up a goal to the Loons, 10 seconds later Liam Monahan beat three Loons defenders to put the Horde ahead 6-2. Monahan had 4 points on the night and Speier had three, with each scoring two goals. At the post-game press conference, defenseman Brian Hinderks noted “We all thought Liam and Nygren could score, they just kept telling us they didn’t want to hurt the goalies.” Will Schultz, who miss 4 open nets on the night remarked “We were lucky to get out of there with a win – the Loons brought their A game and I am scoring adverse.” Jeff Nelson commented “Our one-legged center finally decided to shoot the puck, who knew it would go in?”
Up next, the Horde face a hot Chaos team that has been crushing opponents of late. This figures to be a low scoring game as two of the best defenses in D2 go head-to-head. The teams skated to a 2-2 tie to open the season, but this time around 2 goals may be enough to win it. The puck drops at Yackel/West Side at 4:50 pm next Sunday.
