The Icelandic Canadian - 01.12.2002, Blaðsíða 34

118
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Vol. 57 #3
with Boston Bruins), Crutchey Morrison,
Reddy Smith, Alex Morrison, Jocko
Anderson, Pete Mitchell—and many other
stars. The Falcons stepped out and exceed-
ed their own expectations and surprised the
hockey fans of the town by taking a most
thrilling set-to by a 7-2 score.
They started off carefully, with a three-
man defence with Slim Haldrson or Huck
Woodman usually the pivot third man.
That was the first time this style of defence
had been adopted here and the Selkirks
were baffled. They threw attack after attack
on the Falcon bulwark, but were consis-
tently stopped or eased towards the boards
from where an angle shot with no player
obscuring the line of flight of the puck was
just to Wally Byron’s liking. And how he
could kick those sizzling shots out! Wally
was a fine ball player and this stood him in
good stead in his goal-keeping. Fie had a
great pair of hands and used them to the
best advantage. The Goodman-
Fredrickson-Halderson combination was
working like a charm. The pace was a with-
ering one and no let-up on either side was
permissible or the results would have been
disastrous. Jocko Anderson and Harry
Oliver, and the fleet Crutchy Morrison
strove desperately to penetrate the Falcon
defence. Joe Simpson, the wonder man,
who always put all he had into his weaving
corkscrew rushes and packed a terrific
shot, went down time and again. They sent
down three and four-men rushes, storming
the Falcon defensive territory in a desper-
ate bombardment and sometimes succeed-
ed in stirring the conflict into a regular
melee in and about the goal mouth; the fans
meanwhile raising a deafening roar of
approval in anticipation of a score. The
Falcons adhered to their prearranged plan
of two-man rushes with rapier-like thrusts
deep into the Selkirk defensive zone and
their shots were trained on openings. They
steadily added to their count while Selkirk
strove to solve the Falcon system, trying, as
the game wore on, to play the Falcons at
their own game. This had not been their
practiced way and the new methods of the
Falcons upset the calculations of the great
Selkirk team.
The final score stood, as said before,
Falcons 7, Selkirk 2. The fans, wending
their way slowly out of the rink, were in a
jubilant mood. Later, after obtaining a taste
of this high-speed hockey, many fans
would stand all night in line at the rink
waiting for the box office to open up for
the sale of tickets for the next game. The
queue formed would sometimes reach a
good city block back from the entrance of
the rink.
The Selkirk team took the next game
from Falcons, 5-4. They fought desperately
and Joe Simpson’s redoubtable brigade fin-
ished on the long end of the score in the
closest, most scintillating hockey imagin-
able, with twenty minutes of torrid over-
time play. The winning goal came from a
wild scramble in front of the Falcon goal
with several players sprawled on the ice.
Jocko Anderson, lying flat on his stomach,
was just able to reach the puck with the end
of his stick and poke it into the Falcon net.
The Falcons took another game from
Selkirk when they tied the score with only
fifteen seconds to go and went on to win in
overtime, 3-2. Fredrickson went right
through the Selkirk team to score while off
balance, Brandow having stepped into his
path. This picture of the flying hockeyist
carrying through to score after having been
knocked clean off balance, both his feet fly-
ing outward from under him, has remained
vividly impressed upon my memory as a
highlight of hockey at its best; coordina-
tion of hockey sense and physical power
requiring no premeditation accomplished
the seemingly impossible.
In the greatest game of the season
Selkirk opened with a terrific burst of
speed which carried all before it. Joe
Simpson was training his sights on the
Falcon goal and after a characteristic rush
scored the first goal for Selkirk. Selkirk
pressed hard, sending four men down and
Slim broke away on a counter-attack to
beat Brandow, alone on defence and
notched the equalizer. Falcons finished
strong, Selkirk seemingly having burnt up a
lot of their surplus pep in the opening
attack. Despite the stubborn and desperate
nature of the defensive tactics there were
singularly few penalties and those only for
minor infringements. With end to end