Flin Flon tumbled below .500 with a second tough loss this weekend, losing to Weyburn 4-1.
The Bombers began the night by honouring players’ families and billets with a pregame ceremony, with players presenting them with gifts and posing for pictures. Family members came from across Canada and the U.S. to see their boys play. In an attempt to motivate the crowd, affiliates of the team showed clips of the famous Moose Leg brawl between Flin Flon and Weyburn back in 2016, which led to a series win by the Bombers - Mike Eskra, formerly a four-year member of the Wings who was on the ice for the fight and the series, was in the building, now working his first season as an SJHL referee.
The night may have started on a high note, but the game itself started on a sour one - Weyburn opened the scoring once again, with Braigh Legrandeur getting a ricochet shot from the corner past goalie Jake Torget, making his first start in the Whitney Forum. The Wings went up 1-0 on the broken play.
Flin Flon pushed ahead and spent long periods in the Wings’ zone, but couldn’t generate much offence, either firing shots wide, hitting posts or being saved by either Wings goalie Dazza Mitchell or blocked by defenders. Weyburn extended the lead with Drew Molde scoring after being left wide open in front of Torget, making it 2-0 Wings going into the intermission.
Late in the first, Ryder Mucha was driven hard into the board from behind by Weyburn’s Cyrpus Smith-Davis, drawing a crowd. The hit was hard enough to knock off Mucha’s helmet and some gloved punches were thrown - Smith-Davis was sent to the box for two minutes for a check from behind and the Bombers fumbled the powerplay, ending it still down two.
The second period was a quiet one, figuratively and literally - the Whitney Forum crowd, usually rowdy on a Saturday night, was so quiet that team members could be easily heard speaking on the bench. The Bombers tried to give the fans a reason to get loud, with Carter Anderson getting a great chance on a breakaway but firing it wide. Moments later, Weyburn’s Simon Martin had a similar chance, being stopped by Torget.
Torget would be solved again by the Wings later in the period though, with Ethan DeKay wandering up to the net unspotted by the Bomber D and banging in a loose puck.
Things got physical later in the frame with a huge hit by the Bombers’ Wylie Smith, followed soon after with Smith-Davis doing his best to pick a fight with Anderson - that request was shoved away by the Bomber forward. Flin Flon was down 3-0 after two periods of uninspired hockey.
The Bombers woke up in the third and tried to make a late push, pulling Torget in favour of Kenny Marquart for the final frame. Smith-Davis didn’t take long to kick one of Marquart’s legs out near the net, knocking the goalie over - the Wings forward drew an interference penalty, but little to no reaction from the Bombers, who did nothing to come to their goalie’s defence after the hit and couldn’t convert on yet another powerplay.
Flin Flon finally got on the board midway through the third on another powerplay chance, with a shot by Anthony Piccininno taking a hop in the slot and going off Koen Senft’s helmet and in - the forward was a little shaken up but celebrated the goal with his teammates and finished out the game.
With three minutes to go and a steep hill to climb, the Bombers pulled Marquart, but a late push of hero puck wasn’t going to fix this. Blake Betson got the puck out of the zone, wrestled past a desperate Ryder Ringor and scored on the empty net in the final minute, sending the Bombers’ faithful home cross. Some late fireworks erupted between both teams, with the Moose Leg brawl being played on the board a second time following the game - a hollow gesture following a weekend where the Wings beat the Bombers twice and Flin Flon managed just two goals.
Mitchell made 41 saves on 42 Bomber shots, almost half of which came in the third. Torget made 21 saves through 40 minutes, while Marquart went eight-for-eight in relief.
Flin Flon losing both games at home in one weekend is rare - it’s been over six years since the Bombers played two home games in a weekend and lost both. Kindersley is the last team to do it, beating Flin Flon 4-2 Oct. 5, 2018, then doing the same in a shootout the next night. It’s the first time Flin Flon hasn’t gotten at least one point from a weekend homestand since Dec. 2017, when Humboldt beat Flin Flon twice in regulation Dec. 8-9.
