The MCRHL Blows into Grandville Michigan

As the weather turns colder the MCRHL blows into Grandville, Michigan for the second MCRHL event on November 3^rd and 4^th.  For many of the attending teams this is the first event of the season, and through out the rink there was an intense feeling of excitement and uncertainty.  For some this would be there first college roller hockey game and for others this was just the start of another season.          

 

            Grand Valley State (3-1-2) vs.   Northern Illinois (0-4-1)

 

 

 

Entering the weekend these two teams looked at the schedule and could see that this game was an important start to their season.  Each team had two games prior to this match to warm up for each other with Grand Valley State going 1-1-0 while Northern Illinois got off to a 0-2-0 start.  

The NIU Huskies were looking for their first win of the young season but the GVSU Lakers were not looking to be kind hosts.  NIU did exactly what they planed to do and that was jump out to a quick start by scoring the first goal of the game.  The ice-breaking goal was off of the stick of Ryan Thunberg from Marcus Glas at 9:59 of the first period.  After NIU started hot GVSU would then take some penalties putting them in a spot they didn’t want to be in.  The first penalty was for roughing by David Trahan.  The Lakers would be able to hold off the surging Huskies but just as Trahan’s penalty ended Tony Switkowski would take a holding penalty.  The Lakers would not be so lucky on this power play because 18 seconds into the power play Ryan Thunberg would find Nick Miller who bet Zak Kennedy of GVSU giving NIU a 2-0 lead.  Within the next few minutes Trahan would find himself back in the box for unsportsmen like.  NIU wouldn’t waste any time and before Trahan could get comfortable the Huskies Captain Mike Zickus would find the back of the net give the Huskies a 3-0 lead.  You could see that the Huskies were flying high and the Lakers were trying to find a way to stay out of the box.  Grand Valley State would get a chance before the end of period one to have their own power play chances when Mike Zickus would take a penalty for slashing.  Not more than one minute later Zickus would be joined in the box by teammate Ryan Turnberg for high sticking, giving GVSU a two man advantage.  The Lakers Ryan Gendron would put Grand Valley State on the board at the 1:09 mark of the first period, bring the score to 3-1.  Going into the break the Lakers were not where they wanted to be but with Gendron’s goal it gave them momentum they were looking to gain back.  Northern Illinois knew that Grand Valley State would come at them now with more resistance and the Huskies responded at the 10:58 make of the second period by beating Kennedy for the forth time of the game, this goal was scored by David Hines from Ryan Turnberg giving the Huskies a 4-1 lead.  After the Hines goal Turnberg may have been over excited when he took another high sticking penalty and once again the Lakers would take advantage of this call scoring another special teams goal off the stick of Gendron giving him two on the night.  Corey Kelly would then put the Lakers in another hole when he took an unsportsmen like penalty at 9:22 of the second.  Grand Valley State would catch a break and Gendron would go coast to coast and beat Dave Isom to take the score to 4-3.  Grand Valley State was pumped up after the short handed goal but was not able to add the equalizer but at the same time they were able to keep NIU off the board until the 5:07 mark when again special teams would make the difference.  Switkowski was in the box for tripping when David Hines would add his second goal of the game to increase the lead to 5-3 NIU.  NIU would then add another goal off the blade of Tyler Reyes from the captain Mike Zickus to go up by three goals.  The feeling in the rink was that NIU had control of the game at this point, but the Lakers were not going to give up and would come out of the break and score their second short handed goal of the game this time Chris Siemer would catch a pass from Stephen Hertford to beat Isom.  The Huskies would bounce right back and score a rare even strength goal giving David Hines his third goal of the game and the Huskies a 7-4 lead but that would be the last time the Huskies would find the back of the net.  Stephen Hartford would then add another goal for the Lakers at 8:12 of the third period.  The Lakers would show their strength on special teams one more time when Trahan took a pass from Kyle Chambers to bring them within one at 7-6.  Less than two minutes later Trahan would finally get the Lakers even with the Huskies when Gendron would feed him for his second goal of the game.  Both the Huskies and the Lakers were punishing the opposing goalies with shot after shot but neither team would be able to find an opening and the game would end in a seven to seven tie.  Both goalies had a lot of black plastic flying at them and Zak Kennedy faced 43 shots and Dave Isom faced 40 shots.  The three stars of the game were #1 Ryan Gendron (GVSU) (3G, 1A) #2 David Hines (NIU) (3G, 0A) #3 David Trahan (GVSU) (2G, 0A).

            The weekend was full of great games as well as many surprises.  The MCRHL is definitely heating up even with the cool weather coming in.  Stay tuned for a recap of weekend #3.