It’s not quite the haul a Vancouver Canuck would receive, but one lone, red hat made it onto the ice Saturday afternoon after the Prince Rupert Seawolves’ Midget reps’ Cole Atchison scored his third goal of the game to complete a hat trick against Kitimat in a 6-4 victory.
But he wasn’t even done with three.
Tied 4-4 with just under seven minutes left in the game and having scored the tying goal earlier in the third, Atchison let a shot go from the point just as a Rupert power-play expired and the puck found its way past Kitimat goaltender Nick Almeida for Atchison’s fourth goal, and the 5-4 lead, that the Seawolves wouldn’t relinquish in the dying minutes.
Then, on a rush coming off a splendid save by Rupert goalie Cole Lindsay, Seawolves’ forward Drew Fudger raced up the ice and pulled off a backhand deke on a partial breakaway to put the Seawolves up for good, 6-4 with only 1:57 left in the game.
Fudger also scored Rupert’s second goal of the game early in the second period with the home team down 2-1 off an original shot’s rebound.
It was a steady performance for the Seawolves who played without Tyler Matalone and Jared Carter due to suspensions from an earlier game, but it got off to a rocky start.
A cross-crease pass reached the Winterhawks’ Zachary Carrita and he potted it past Lindsay for the 1-0 lead when the game wasn’t even five minutes old.
The towering Winterhawks, who often dwarfed the smaller Seawolves, especially when Kitimat’s Giuseppe Bravo, James Eckstein and Thomas Forrest were on the ice, only dressed 12 players for the game, but Rupert didn’t have many more as they iced 14.
Atchison got the Seawolves on the board at the 16:00 mark of the first on a nice move on a shorthanded breakaway.
After a fluke bounce off a couple of skates in front of Lindsay’s net caught the tendy off guard, Carrita scored again for the Winterhawks 1:20 into the second period to regain their lead at 2-1.
Fudger tied it up later as both teams ran into penalty trouble. Kitimat’s captain, Joel Demelo was sent to the box after tying up Austin Weir when he flew to Almeida’s net early in the second and Rupert’s Manreet Doel was given a five-minute major and was ejected from the game after a boarding call later on.
Through the midway point of the second, Demelo scored on the power-play to put Kitimat up a third time at 3-2, but Atchison scored his second three minutes later from the left half-wall to tie it up a third time at 3-3 .
Joel Meier added to the period’s furious pace when he scored the Winterhawks’ final goal with 4:42 left in the second frame.
Maninder Sidhu and Atchison had good chemistry through the afternoon and the line of Keiden Archer, Atchison and Fudger was buzzing to end the game.