A dominant performance by Melbourne Mustangs’ forward, Pat O’Kane ensured that Team Schlamp emerged 7-3 victors of the inaugural AIHL All-Star Game at the Hunter Ice Skating Stadium on Sunday night.
For his four goals and one assist, O’Kane was awarded the Most Valuable Player and with it earned $5,000 for himself and $4,000 for his club, the Melbourne Mustangs.
O’Kane, who was unable to attend the skills events on Saturday due to the Mustangs end of season presentation where he won the club’s season MVP award, said the All-Star game was “so much fun”.
“I’m really glad that the league did this,” O’Kane said. “I was looking forward to it for a long time ever since we knew we were coming. Thank you to everyone who took part in making this happen and then the players for showing up. It was a lot of fun; I’d like to come back.”
Team captains Michael Schlamp and Brian Bales said the weekend was an excellent way to finish the season and great fun for all involved.
“It was good fun; it’s good to play with a bunch of the guys,” Schlamp said. “You play against all these guys and they’re all good competitors but to play with them, you really appreciate the skill that’s around the league.”
“Obviously, I’d have liked a better outcome on the Sunday, but overall I thought it was a great weekend,” Bales said. “Half the reason we play in the league is everyone obviously loves the sport but there’s also the networking and social aspect of it; I think this emphasises that even more. It was a great weekend.”
The hockey on offer was end-to-end, high intensity; very smooth and very clean – not a single penalty was called through the course of the game.
It was always going to be a fun occasion and a cheeky slap shot early on from Ice Dogs rookie Daniel Pataky was proof of that, everyone was teeing up their chances early on.
This was followed up by team captain Michael Schlamp after it was knocked back out in front of the net, who put in the Mustangs’ Vadim Virjassov to open the scoring early on.
Stephen Blunden was next to get his name on the scoresheet to bring the scores level, ably assisted by his team captain Brian Bales and Mitchell Humphries.
With two goals early on, it wasn’t about to ease up and on more than one occasion, we saw breakaway skates up the ice only for goalies from both side standing firm to the challenge.
This was until Ice Dogs captain Brian Funes managed to break the deadlock, Schlamp once again the contributor with the players on his team looking like they’d been playing together for a lot longer than a couple of shifts.
Ice duo Matt Armstrong and Tommy Powell then combined in front of the goal, unselfishly allowing the puck to drop back to fellow Melbournite Pat O’Kane to open his account for Team Schlamp.
O’Kane followed this up with an unassisted goal, firing through the five hole of a helpless Kamil Jarina shortly following, to close the first period with Team Schlamp leading 4-1.
The Team Bales captain was next to hit the net, flicking the puck to the goalie’s left to bring his team back into the game early in the second, only for Armstrong and Powell to combine once again with O’Kane with the Melbourne-based forward line for Team Schlamp was certainly looking every bit the All-Star line.
Who else but Pat O’Kane popped up immediately after the goal, delivering a scintillating top corner snapshot from the point, ably assisted by Pataky, who himself took his points tally for the game to two.
Heading in at the close of the second period, Team Schlamp was looking dominant with a 6-2 score line; though in all honesty both teams had plenty more chances than even the score line suggests.
The third and final period of AIHL hockey for the season slowed down a little but this didn’t hinder the excitement.
O’Kane popped up to repay the favour assisting a Powell goal before North Stars youngster Pat Nadin scored the final goal of the evening for Team Bales; the Adrenaline’s Josef Rezek and Thunder’s Kieren Webster the providers.
Matt Armstrong almost closed the night out with a goal, hitting the post following a slick breakaway one-on-one before the game, but the win was already in the bag at this point.
While the score line was less important than the exhibition, Team Bales coach Andrew Petrie said it was a “privilege to be part of it”.
“Obviously they’re not going to have a lot of synergy on the ice, they don’t play with each other throughout the season but they had a hell of a good synergy off the ice,” Petrie said. “It was really nice to see.
“It’s a nice showcase for the league; this is the inaugural event and they did a phenomenal job. It was very professionally run and I think there’s probably some lessons that they can learn from this to make next year’s even better and so on and so forth. I think in three or four years from now, this could be one of the highlights of the season.”
Team Schlamp coach Vlad Rubes agreed with Petrie’s sentiments, looking forward to the next instalment.
“There’s a lot of talk about doing it in the middle of the season next year; this’d be exciting as well having the imports be a part of it, but still, it’s a great venue and it’s a great idea to have,” Rubes said. “It was good, because the sportsmanship was really high and I think the expectations of this game were that everyone could have fun and showcase their talents; I think they showed themselves well.”
With the first All-Star Weekend done and dusted, it seems that all players will be itching to return for the second AIHL All-Star Weekend set to take place midway through the 2016 AIHL season.
|
ICE DOGS
RHINOS
ADRENALINE
BEARS
THUNDER
ICE
BRAVE
LIGHTNING
NORTHSTARS
MUSTANGS
