Jonny on the spot
Richardson finds groove with three-goal performance

Ottawa – Veteran Xpertek Construction Inc. Hockey Club winger Jon Richardson admits that he had been squeezing the stick a little too tight in the four games he had played since the birth of his first-born son.

Like most first-time, hockey-playing fathers, Richardson was eager to score that first goal so he could bring the puck home to his boy and hopefully infuse him with an early passion for the great game of hockey.

Problem is, Richardson was held pointless in every game he had played since the little tyke made his appearance – until recently, that is.

In a demonstration of pure goal-scoring precision, Richardson had not one, not two, but three pucks to bring home after Xpertek HC easily disposed of its far inferior Battlecat opponents by a 6-2 score in recent OSMHL action.

“Yeah, it’s true that I wanted to score so bad,” Richardson said post-game. “I kept the puck from my first-ever minor hockey goal. I kept the tennis ball from my first-ever road hockey goal. I kept the puck from my first-ever Carver Communications goal. I kept the puck from my first-ever Xpertek goal. And I even keep all the pucks after I score in the warm-up. Obviously, I was going to keep the puck to commemorate my first goal after my son was born. It took longer than expected, but I’m really, really, really relieved right now.”

All three Richardson goals were set up by Marc Baril, who briefly held the OSMHL scoring lead for the first time in his career, only to fall back to a tie for fifth going into this weekend’s action after other teams in the division made up their games in hand.

Xpertek HC managed the win with a back-up goaltender manning the crease in place of regular netminder Pat Lafontaine, who was called up to face the Montreal Canadiens alumni in a friendly match across town.

It remains to be seen whether Lafontaine managed to stymie the Habs shooters with the aplomb he brings to the ice in the OSMHL. Still, the call-up should be good for his confidence and will hopefully propel him to a solid second half with Xpertek HC, who will next face-off against their archrivals – The Saints – on Sunday, December 21, at 10 p.m. at Bernard Grandmaitre Arena in their last game before Christmas.


THREE STARS

1. Jon Richardson – Snipes three-goals, brings pucks home for the boy
2. Marc Baril – Makes like Gretzky, sets up three
3. Steve Parker – Two-point effort vaults centre up the league scoring ladder

Xpertek HC win streak stops at three
Surging squad manages only a tie against inferior Trash

Ottawa – It could have been reversal of fortune night at the Fred Barrett Arena Sunday evening, as team Trash almost took out the garbage that was the Xpertek HC performance, but ultimately had to settle for a 2-2 tie with the division leaders.

From the very first puck drop, Xpertek looked sluggish, often struggling to string together two passes in a row. Even when Xpertek did manage to pick up the pace, the team was ‘All-Swedish, No-Finnish’ from in close, missing on a multitude of scoring chances that could have put the game out of reach early on.

Instead, team Trash took it to the slow-to-show Xpertek HC, and even held a 2-0 lead going into the second period.

“Tabaslac, we had a lot of chances,” said defenceman Brett Kubicek after the game, trying out the French derivative of tabarnac for the first time, eager to see if he could pull it off in a sentence.

“From my perch on the blueline, I saw at least a half-dozen tabaslackan shots that could have beaten the tabaslackan goalie, but he made some tabaslackan nice saves to keep them in it,” he added, taking his usage of the more polite incarnation of the popular swearword just a little too far.

While for awhile it looked as though team Trash might walk away with the victory, most on press row knew it was only a matter of time before the sleeping giant that is the Xpertek HC offence would come to life.

Right on cue, Etienne Dutrisac – a scoring revelation early in this OSMHL season – buried a Tony Lemay rebound to cut the Trash lead to 2-1.

Later in the period, Dutrisac again factored in on the scoring when he cleverly tipped a Marc Baril face-off win back to point-man Pierre Bouwhuis, whose seeing-eye shot found its way through a maze in front to stretch the mesh in the back of the net.

With the assist, Dutrisac moved into a tie for second in league scoring behind teammate Tony Lemay.

“I’d be first if Baril and Lemay hadn’t slowed me down all night,” Dutrisac said, post-game.

Still standing high atop the division standings, Xpertek HC next takes to the ice on Wednesday, December 3, in another dreaded 11 p.m. start.

THREE STARS

1. Etienne Dutrisac -- Xpertek HC's very own Mark Streit, fills it admirably at forward
2. Pierre Bouwhuis -- Leans in hard on heavy shot to send the game to a shootout
3. Tony Lemay -- Buzzed around the net all night, unfreazable shot creates rebound for first Xpertek goal