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Final Period Ends Stickmen

July 4, 2008

South Fraser and Burnaby opened the BCJALL season all the way back on April 23rd, and Thursday night the two teams would meet again in what would be the Stickmen's last game of the season.

I arrived late to the game and came in with the score 2-1 in favor of the Stickmen. Graham Chandler had the start in net, and there were a few of South Frasers line-up watching from the stands; most notably third years Travis Voisey and Chris Martin, as well as the usual starting goalie Mike Lowe.

Burnaby had all their new players out for the game including Dane Stevens, Neil Arobogast, and goalie Scott Lowe (all came from Delta at the trade deadline), and ex-Stickmen Anthony Besse.

No goals would be scored in the remainder of the period and the second would start with another Burnaby goal from Riley Loewen to tie things up. South Fraser managed to answer back quickly enough when Neil Halliday threw it in past Tom Wray to give South Fraser the lead again, but after Justin Harwoods penalty for high sticking new Laker Dane Stevens would tie it up on the power play.

Going into the third all tied at three I expected both teams to come out with a little more desperation than they did. Burnaby was sharp on their special teams with Cam Appels scoring short handed just a couple of minutes in. From there South Fraser just seemed to give up and coast it out, taking four undisciplined penalties including an unsportsmanlike and a delay of game.

Shawn Dhaliwal would put in a security goal for Burnaby with just three minutes left on what looked like a delayed penalty; and with just a minute left in the game the Stickmen almost had a goal when the ball took a bad bounce off Laker net minder Tom Wray but it was no such luck.

The game would end 5-3 for the Lakers who sweep the season series against the Stickmen.

All in all, a season I'm guessing the Stickmen would like to do again. As I said in a previous article, no one knows this better than the team and organization themselves. There was a lot of activity for the Stickmen this season including both players and organization shuffling; but whatever it was that led them to a 1-20 season, the club must wipe the slate clean for next year and move on to bigger and better things.