In Trail Commercial Hockey League action at the Cominco Arena, Firebird rallied in the third period to win its first game of the season on Sunday, by serving up a 5-3 loss to the Arlington.
Eric Hill took a pass from Trevor Fennell and pumped in his second goal of the night 1:13 into the final frame to break a 3-3 tie, while goalie Mike Kooznetsoff shut the door the rest of the way to put Firebird firmly in the win column.
Firebird jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first period on goals from Hill and Craig Clare, and made it 3-0 when Fennell converted a neat feed from Hill to give the combustible avian a seemingly comfortable lead at 14:33 of the second.
However, the Big A stormed back scoring three straight goals from Jake Vlanich, Kris Kent, and Darryl Zol in less than five minutes to knot the game at 3-3. But that’s as close as they’d get as Hill’s winner decided it and Al Berglund would make it 5-3 with just 12 seconds remaining to ice it for Firebird.
In other action Sunday, Re/Max squeezed out a 5-4 victory over OK Tire, to increase its lead in the TCHL.
The implacable Cohen Rutherglen netted what proved to be the winning goal at 12:54 of the second frame to give the realtors a 5-3 lead, which held up despite a late third-period marker by the Tire’s Troy Palmer.
The Tire grabbed an early 1-0 lead when Darrin Kissock settled a pass from Shawn Venturini and wired home a shot.
But Re/Max came back scoring three straight on goals by Graham Proulx, Rutherglen and Gabe Gaudet to take a 3-1 lead.
Palmer would cut the lead to one late in the first, but Devyn Hill restored the two-point spread, before Shane Drake struck again for the Tire.
Despite the loss, the Tire moved into a tie for second place with Arlington by virtue of a close 2-1 victory over the Allstars on Thursday.
Tonight’s action will see Firebird take on OK Tire at 7:15 p.m. and Arlington face off against the Allstars at 8:30 p.m. On Friday Re/Max plays Firebird at 8:15 p.m..