The Stingers entered St Paul Civic Center still on a quest for a win. Wins
have become elusive for the struggling club and despite a poor outing against the Toronto
Toros, Terry Slater decided to try young goal tender Rich Couta once again. But the change
did very little to stop the Stingers bleeding. Despite out shooting the Fighting Saints
40-25, the club still failed to score more goals then their opponent.
The Minnesota Fighting Saints managed
to get on the board first with a goal by right wing Wayne Connelly. A goal that was
deflected in by a Stingers defensman. Cincinnati answered with a goal by Gene Sobchuk
during a power play. The goal would be Sobchuks ninth of the season and second in two
games. The Fighting Saints Wayne Connelly scored his second goal of the game when Stingers
goal tender Couta partially blocked the puck on his short side. But the puck wound up
falling back to the ice and slid across the line for the goal.
The Minnesota Fighting Saints center
Wayne Connelly completed his hat trick 1:38 seconds into the second period to put the
Saints up 4-2. However on the power play Dennis Sobchuk torched a 50 foot shot past Saints
goal tender John Garrett after a pass from Mike Pelyk. Wayne Connelly went on to score yet
again at 13:39 to keep the Saints ahead by 2 goals. Shortly after, the Saints found
themselves down by two men. Bill Butters and Henry Boucha were sent to the penalty box
after roughing and hooking calls. But despite the Saints being down by two players for a
full minute and 23 seconds, the Stingers were unable to score.
Cincinnati managed to finally score
2:52 into the third period after Claude Larose knocked in his 14th of the season. In on
the goal was John "the Tank" Hughes who bounced the puck out in front of Saints
goalie Garrett. This set up Claude Larose for the goal. Cincinnati was now within one goal
of tying the game. But Wayne Connelly continued his dominance of the Stingers by netted
his fifth goal of the game at 6:55. The goal tied a league record for most goals by a
single player in one game. If he scored a sixth goal, it would break the record. The
Saints tried desperately to get the puck to Connelly so that he could try and break the
league record but he was unsuccessful.
For the Stingers however, they never
managed to score another goal despite out shooting the Saints 15-8 in the final period of
play. The rest of the period consisted mainly of fights between the Saints and Stingers.
One fight in particular was between Stingers Bernie MacNeil and former Cincinnati
Swords Ron Busniuk.
The loss was the Stingers seventh
straight. But with the Cleveland Crusaders losing to the lowly Denver Spurs by a score of
3-0, the Stingers and Crusaders remained in first place within the sleepy East Division. |
