Golden Bears Hockey dominates in first ever Teddy Bear Toss

Friday night’s game on November 22 saw an exciting matchup between the best and second best teams in Canada West. The Golden Bears hockey team hosted the Saskatchewan Huskies over their first ever Teddy Bear Toss. After the Bears scored their first goal of the game, every fan threw a teddy bear on the ice to be donated to the Norwood Child and Family Resource Centre.

The Bears swept the Huskies earlier this season on October 18 and 19 to help secure their top spot.

Bears left-winger Brett Hyland was absent from Fridays game and will be until January due to an injury. Head coach Ian Herbers has been working to determine who will fill in on Josh Prokop and Sean Tschigerl‘s line. Last weekend’s games against the Regina Cougars saw Ty Nash take a crack at it to generate three goals over the weekend. On Friday, Connor McClennon subbed in to take three goals of his own.

A tense couple periods lead to a wild third

The game was looking a little sketchy for the first four minutes as the Bears could not maintain possession. Missed calls resulted in an unusual amount of time spent in the Bears’ defensive zone. Not that Ethan Kruger was going to let anything past him anyways.

After beautiful back-to-back rebounds from Tschigerl, Prokop, and finally McClennon, the Bears secured their first ever Teddy Bear Toss goal. Following McClennon’s goal, the Bears started to play like they actually knew what offensive pressure was.

Prokop and Tschigerl continued to fire on all cylinders generating most of the Bears’ strategic plays. While McClennon consistently found the open spot and knew where he needed to be.

A static second resulted in only one goal against for the Bears but some unique developments on the defensive structure. Aidan de la Gorgendiere and Marc Lajoie took a back seat while Mason Ward and Blake Gustafson developed against a competitive team.

However the real star of the second, and really the whole game, was Kruger who actually heard a fan say “I’m in love with you.”

To take the Bears out of a tied game, McClennon scored his second goal of the game. Prokop later took his first goal on a breakaway after coming out of the penalty box from a strategic play from Bears’ defensive teams.

A massive fight broke out after McClennon’s empty net goal, resulting in 10-minute game misconducts for Lajoie, de la Gorgendiere, and McClennon. Huskies players Dawson Holt and Vince Loshiavo also received 10=minute game misconducts.

What is happening on defence and the special teams?

Herbers seems to be developing his second line defensive combo of Ward and Gustafson. Bit of an odd time for Lajoie and de la Gorgendiere to take a step back considering the Huskies are just under the Bears in Canada West. However, why wouldn’t a head coach want all parts of his defensive lineup ready to go against the top teams? Seems like they are.

With developing defence comes goal-tending challenges and the Bears certainly delivered. Kruger was at the top of his game after denying all the breakaway plays on Friday night, especially on a disappointing power play.

The Bears’ power play struggled in the first period and resulted in three breakaway plays for the Huskies. Not what you want to see on the odd-man advantage. Throughout the second and third, the Bears picked up the power play to stay in their defensive but couldn’t generate any goals.

After a once beautiful power play falls to fifth in Canada West, you’d like to the think the penalty kill would rise over it. And for the most part you’d be right. The penalty kill has seen a steady incline from sixth to fourth, but remained static over Friday night’s game.

With that being said, the Bears have certainly improved a once very costly unit and have limited goals against.