There was plenty of holiday spirit in the Arena Saturday evening, as the team’s annual “Teddy Bear Toss” to benefit The Spokesman-Review’s Christmas Bureau brought out a huge crowd, thousands of stuffed animals – and “Boomer Claus” inspired jerseys and goalie pads for the special occasion.
But there was also the matter of a hockey game between bitter division rivals, who this year could end up fighting tooth-and-nail at the end of the season for a conference playoff spot.
Sam Oremba had a goal and an assist, Owen Martin added a goal and two helpers and the Spokane Chiefs beat the Tri-City Americans 4-2 in a Western Hockey League game before a raucous crowd of 10,112.
“Obviously the crowd was great,” Chiefs coach Brad Lauer said. “Great excitement in the building, you know, just electric. Our kids enjoyed it. It’s a fun night, especially when you can score a goal and get the win. So, it was good all around.”
The Chiefs much-maligned power play went 1 for 2 and is now 10 for 107 (9.3%) for the season after going went 2 for 6 in Friday’s win.
“We’re scoring. I mean, that’s the biggest thing,” Lauer said. “We’re finding ways to get pucks to the net, you know. Before, we were getting some chances, and they weren’t going in. So, we’re still work in progress, but it’s going in the right direction.”
“Towards the end of the game, I thought we started to build. I thought we did a lot of good things,” Oremba said. “We wore them down. We were hard on their forecheck, and I think we just battled to the end and found a way to win”
Tri-City got the game’s first goal at 2:29 of the first period. Jesse McKinnon hustled to wash out a potential icing and from behind the net fed Alexander Laing in the slot, who pushed it past Chiefs goalie Carter Esler (17 saves) for his third goal of the season.
It stayed that way through the end of the period.
“Everybody wants to score the goal, and individual hockey creeps into our locker room,” Lauer said of the slow start. “Everybody wants to be the teddy bear guy.”
Though the Chiefs were shut out in the first period, it didn’t take too long in the second period to trigger the teddy bear toss.
At 3:04 of the period, defenseman Kaden Allen wound up with a big slap shot from center point and Chase Harrington deflected it past Tri-City goalie Xavier Wendt, tying Mathis Preston and Coco Armstrong for the team lead in goals with nine.
The 9,087 teddy bears – an organization record – came flying, then after a 23-minute intermission to clear the ice play resumed tied 1-1.
The Chiefs capitalized on the momentum and broke the tie 5 minutes later. Cohen Harris corralled a puck along the left wing boards, circled, and whipped a shot high stick side past Wendt for his third goal of the season.
A little more that 6 minutes into the third period, Tri-City got its second crack at the power play, and the Americans made it count with Savin Virk scoring his 10th goal of the season.
Less than a minute later the Chiefs were awarded their first power play opportunity with Grady Martin sent off for roughing. But Harrington immediately took a hooking penalty to set up 4-on-4 hockey.
The Chiefs took advantage. Oremba gathered a puck at center ice and came in on Wendt and the goalie poke-checked the puck straight to Owen Martin, who dumped it into the yawning goal for his seventh goal of the campaign.
Two minutes later Spokane scored again. A flurry of shots from close in resulted in Oremba knocking a rebound past Wendt from his knees for his eighth tally of the season – and a much-needed power play goal.
“Our power play’s been a little frustrating,” Oremba said. “There’s been a few games the boys have come together and said, like, ‘We’ve got to do better.’ The past two games, our power play’s ended up winning the game for us. And that’s what good teams got to do, and good players got to do.”
The Chiefs outshot Tri-City 39-19.
“I think the second, third period, we played more of a five-on-five game and more of a team game,” Lauer said. “And you know, when we do that, we’re very good team – and it showed.”
