The Swift Current Home Hardware U18 AAA Legionnaires put on a show for a lively crowd Friday night as they completed a four-goal comeback win over the Saskatoon Blazers to stretch their winning streak to seven games.
Wesley Olson sent the "Pack the 'Plex" audience home happy netting the overtime game-winner as Swift Current stormed back to down Saskatoon 7-6 at the InnovationPlex in Saskatchewan Male U18 AAA Hockey League action. Captain Jace Egland scored four times and added two assists in front of about 800 fans for a game in which all proceeds were going to the Southwest Facility Foundation.
"It's just an unbelievable feeling," Olson said as the hometown faithful erupted on his goal. "We've never had an atmosphere like this before, I can't relate."
The first period started well for the Legionnaires drawing a trio of power plays and logging a pile of offensive zone time but the Blazers became opportunistic scoring on three of their four scoring chances as Cooper Ernewein, Kristian Lacelle, and Kash Ringdal all beat goalie Berney Weston to race out to a 3-0 lead.
Rookie Carter Moen found the back of the net early in the second period finishing off a nice passing play from linemates Egland and Trae Peterson putting Swift Current on the board down 3-1.
"I've really connected with Carter and Trae," Egland said is a big part of his early season success. "Beautiful teammates and players."
About 10 minutes later Egland beat Blazers goalie Madex Kabrud on a wraparound cutting the deficit to 3-2. But that lasted all of 14 seconds as Cooper Perrin scored on a Blazers man-advantage and Tyson Medernach restored the Saskatoon three-goal lead three minutes later.
Vancouver Giants first-round draft pick Blake Chorney scored 48 seconds into the third period to pushing the Blazers lead to 6-2. The Legionnaires didn't go quietly into the night, as a Peterson shot redirected off Egland and in with 15 minutes left in regulation.
Emotions boiled over just past the halfway mark of the third as the Legionnaires were killing a penalty. Ernewein took an extra poke at Weston while the puck was covered leading to a linebrawl between the two teams. Swift Current lost two defenceman Jake Hargrave and Keegan Nash, while Chorney and Will Degagne were also kicked out.
"I know I was loving it and the whole bench was up," Egland said regarding his players sticking up for one another. "It totally changed the game for us. It proved that every guy has every guys back on this team and we're willing to go to anything to protect our teammates."
The dustup certainly energized the home crowd and the Legionnaires as they emerged with a four minute power play. Egland and Peterson each tallied power play markers within 37 seconds of each other making it a 6-5 Saskatoon edge.
With just under two minutes to play, Peterson found Egland with a nice pass on a 2-on-1 and the captain made no mistake on his league leading 13th goal of the season and fourth of the game sending the crowd into a frenzie tying it 6-6.
"I haven't had that feeling maybe since the playoffs in bantam when we packed Fairview West," Egland said. "It just feels like an amazing atmosphere out here and I just want to keep it forever."
Olson took a tripping penalty a minute into overtime but it was negated about 20 seconds later when the Blazers were called for interference. Olson emerged from the box and took off on a 2-on-1 electing to keep it and snap it past Kabrud's glove hand to complete the remarkable comeback.
"Got out of the box and captain Jace Egland threw me a beautiful pass coming down the wall and tucked it home," he said.
The Southwest Facility Foundation made over $10,000 of ticket sales alone for the game excluding the 50/50 raffle and donations. Innovation Federal Credit Union will double the donation from Friday's game by the Legionnaires under their $250,000 matching pledge ongoing until December 20.
"Local businesses could purchase tickets for a classroom, and then we distributed those to all the schools in Swift Current," Southwest Facility Foundation board member Caitlin Mann said. "We got a lot of kids and families out that I don't know if they've ever been to a Legionnaires game before."
As of early Friday morning, over 375 tickets were distributed to students in schools in Swift Current.