The Bombers gave the Whitney Forum a good reason to rock Friday night, with Flin Flon taking a 4-0 win in Game 1 over Kindersley.
A roaring, 1,100-plus strong crowd came to cheer on Flin Flon's team and the team answered back, leading for almost the entire game and leaving the rink with a shutout win.
It took Flin Flon about three minutes to open things up. Jacob Vockler, on Flin Flon's first shot of the playoffs, went goalpost and in on Cody Jaman from distance. From there, the Bomber offence almost went dormant for the rest of the first period, getting just one more shot by the halfway point and ending the frame with only seven, but the defence and goalie Harmon Laser-Hume stood tall when needed. Flin Flon stayed up 1-0 on the score that matters most.
In the second, Flin Flon crashed the net early and often, getting too close at one point when Jerome Gilbert took a goalie interference penalty but otherwise straddling the line. That approach finally paid off late in the frame, when Kindersley took two penalties at the same stoppage and gave the Bombers an A-1 prime powerplay chance.
That paid off with Carter Anderson hammering a puck that ricocheted off a Kindersley defender and into the net, making it 2-0 Flin Flon. Tempers flared late when former Bomber Brock Mueller, playing in his first game in the Forum after being traded to the Klippers in January, took a shot at the Flin Flon net after the final whistle. That drew both an angry cloud of players and a 10-minute misconduct for Mueller's trouble. Flin Flon stayed up 2-0 after 40.
Starting the third four-on-four, the open ice paid off for the home team. Alexi Sylvestre pounced on a Klippers defenceman bobbling a puck in the defensive zone, stripping the puck, going in on a partial break and beating Jaman. Minutes later, Justin Lies caught a pass while wide open in the slot, taking a one-timer and going bar-down on Jaman to extend the lead to four with his first-ever playoff goal as a Bomber. The first two periods were more even than some Bomber fans might have wanted, but the third period was all maroon and white.
The Bombers' luck ran low late in the third with Noah Houle getting four minutes for a hit that connected knee-on-knee with Ethan Hilbig, but Flin Flon stuck with it and killed off every second of the double-minor. Riley Niven got banged up late after taking a Klipper into the boards, opening up a cut on his forehead, but the game would end in a shutout victory for Flin Flon.
Laser-Hume showed why he was named the SJHL goaltender of the year this week, stopping all 31 shots he faced, while Jaman made 26 stops on the night. Laser-Hume's shutout was his fourth this year, his ninth as a Bomber and his second shutout win in the playoffs, along with a blanking in Game 3 against Humboldt last year.
Game 2 between the Bombers and Klippers goes Saturday night.
