Bruins, Rockies battle through five periods

Julian Fraser missed a hat trick by inches

On Sunday, the Rockies hosted the Grand Forks Border Bruins and the two teams fought their way to a 4-4 tie after 70 minutes of hockey. Three full periods and two abbreviated overtime periods provided some great hockey entertainment.

The Bruins opened the scoring at 18:10 with an unassisted goal by Devon Tordoff. At 6:47 the Bruins power play added to the lead - Randy Tosoff from Gary Mahesh and Zachary Thompson. That's the way the period ended.

In the second period, the Rockies scored early, Tye Moses netting a pretty goal by using his speed and dancing around a defender and deking goalie Tyler Stamler to pull within one, assisted by Zack MacLellan.

It took to the end of the period before Julian Fraser scored from Robbie Antoine on the power play - a two-man advantage for the Rockies. Grand Forks regained the lead at 1:43 on a shorthanded effort from Josh Hoffman. The Bruins led after two periods, 3 to 2 and outshot the Rockies 29-19.

In the third period, Stephen Hynes pulled the Rockies even with a gritty effort that began with a one on two and led to a score as he broke around the defencemen and deked the goalie to make it 3-3.

Julian Fraser with his second of the game from Darcy Rail made it 4-3 with 3:23 to play.

The Rockies tried to fend off the Bruins attack, Fraser hitting a post on the empty net with under twenty seconds to play, forcing a faceoff in his own end.

That pressure resulted in the tying goal with less than a second left, as Zachary Thompson scored from Jacob Halderman. Halderman and Bird dropped the gloves simultaneously with the goal and left both teams shorthanded as both teams lost players earlier when Mike Vaughan and Randy Tosoff were ejected for their dustup.

In overtime, both teams had great scoring opportunities, but it was Tyler Stamler who was busier, stopping all seven shots he faced. Jaff Magee stopped the lone shot in overtime directed his way.

The two teams each fired 41 shots at the goalies during the game, with the Rockies having one chance with the man advantage in the second overtime, but Stamler was up to task, stonewalling the Rockies. In the end, Columbia Valley was 1-for-5 on the power play, Grand Forks 1-for-6.

The three stars were Fraser, Moses and Zachary Thompson.

The Rockies next home game is on Saturday, January 30th versus the Creston Valley Thunder Cats.