With the removal of Pierre Guite from the Stingers roster a week prior to
the game, Slater needed a replacement. Slater preferred to replace the left-handed
shooting Guite with another lefty, but instead called up forward Jamie Hislop from the
Hampton Gulls of the Southern Hockey League. Hislop was a right-handed shooter and was an
All-American selection his senior year at the University of New Hampshire where he served
as team captain.
|
© Courtesy of Cincinnati
Public Library. |
The Birmingham Bulls John Garrett deflects a
shot that was taken by the Stingers Dennis Sobchuk. |
Despite the Stingers playing a
home game, the club wore their black road jerseys to compliment a promotion the team was
having before the game. The promotion was "Rick Dudley Sweater Night". Each
youngster, 14 and under, who came to the game with a paying adult received a black
Stingers sweater with No. 9 and Dudleys name on it. The Stingers decided to wear their
black road jerseys during the game for the promotion.
With the Stingers back on home ice and
coming off of their seventh straight loss, Cincinnati came out hard against the Bulls from
the start and never let up. The club skated great, had great defense and checked their
opponent hard.
Dennis Sobchuk began the onslaught with
an early goal at 1:35 after taking a pass from Peter Marsh from right in front of the
Bulls goal. Barry Legge would score 58 seconds later on a similar play after taking a pass
from teammate Blaine Stoughton. The Stingers Dennis Abgrall scored the third goal of the
game two minutes later and Peter Marsh scored Cincinnati's fourth goal of the game with
less then a minute left in the first period. Marsh took a pass from teammate Dennis
Sobchuk and slowly slid the puck past Bulls goalie John Garrett.
Rich Leduc scored the Stingers fifth
goal of the game at 9:26 As he batted the puck in the net for the score, Leduc took a
swipe at Bulls defenseman Jean-Guy Lagace. The Bulls Keith Kokkola then knocked Leduc down
which resulted in all ten players on the ice erupting into a 10 minute long brawl. Leduc
initially took a swipe at Lagace because of a malicious late check to his knees by the
Bull defenseman in the first period. Dudley would say after the game "You go for a
guy's knees like that and you can end his career". Leduc had just signed a four year
contract with the Stingers for a "substantial amount of money". Leduc went on to
score another Stingers goal in the second period to earn that money.
Birmingham finally got on the board
early in the final period to end LaPointes bid for a shut out. The Stingers failed to
clear the puck from behind their own goal and the Bulls Richard Farda intercepted the puck
and passed it to his teammate Vaclav Nedomansky. Nedomansky then took the shot for the
score. Cincinnati picked up an insurance goal at 5:46 when Blaine Stoughton poked a shot
past Garrett who failed to control the puck.
The win ended a seven game slump and
head coach Terry Slater thought that the win may have had something to do with his
mother-in-law. She arrived in Cincinnati on December 15th (when the seven game losing
streak began) and departed the day after the Stingers last loss. "My
mother-in-law is in Canada and all is right with the world". |
