The Cincinnati Stingers traveled 1,200 miles from Quebec to the deep south
of Birmingham Alabama. The Stingers club boarded a plane in Quebec right after the game
and didn't arrive in Birmingham until 7:00 AM. The game against the Bulls started at 5:00
PM. The weather was miserable also and the Stingers play on the ice was equal to the
weather.
The Birmingham Bulls Mark Napier scored
the first goal of the game at 5:11. He scored on a breakaway after stealing a pass in the
Bulls end. He then streaked down the length of the ice with Stingers defensemen in
pursuit. Napier then belted the puck past Paul Hoganson who failed to handle the puck. The
Bulls scored again later in the game after Dale Hoganson took the puck from the boards in
the left corner and drilled a hard angle shot into the net. The Bulls scored yet again at
16:22 when Lou Nistico nailed a shot in on the end of a three-on-one break down the ice.
During the second period the Bulls made
it 4-0 after Paul Henderson scored an unassisted goal from the right circle on a high
shot. Cincinnati finally got on the board forty seconds later when Jacques Locas tapped in
the rebound of his own initial shot. Regrettably it would be the Stingers lone goal of the
game. But the Bulls still had some work to do.
Both teams played hard hockey and that
type of play usually results in some fisticuffs. The Bulls Jean-Guy Legace threw a hip
check into the Stingers Billy Steele. Legace gave the same treatment to Richie Leduc in
the previous meeting between the clubs. Both times ending in mayhem but this time both
benches emptied. Rick Dudley hammered Legace repeatedly. Most likely compensating for his
hip-checking shenanigans from the previous meeting also. By the time everything had
settled down, Dudley and John Hughes were in the penalty box for the Stingers. While
Legace, Gord Gallant and Gilles Bilodeau were out for the Bulls.
Shortly after the on ice antics had
subsided, the Birmingham Bulls Tim Sheehy scored their fifth goal of the game. Jim
Turkiewicz scored another Bulls goal while John Stewart added yet another Bulls goal.
Cincinnati proceeded to play horribly on the road. The loss would drop the Stingers into
third place within their division and a .500 record of 23-23-2.
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