The Birmingham "Bullies" came out shooting and swinging on
Thanksgiving Day as they blasted past the Stingers with a final score of 12-2. The Bulls
had all of their goons out in the deep south for the opening faceoff and it took a whole
twenty four seconds for the Bullies to instigate a full scale bench clearing brawl. The
madness began when Robbie Ftorek took former Stinger Serge Beaudoin into the boards and
Beaudoin took a swipe at Ftorek on the rebound. Just about everyone on the ice got in a
few punches, and when the fighters had been led away, the Bullies had four minutes of
power play as Rick Dudley drew a double minor and game misconduct for coming off the
bench.
The Bulls made the most of the
situation by picking up a power play goal at 1:35. The goal came from Frank Mahovlich when
he took a shot from the near left circle to beat Mike Liut. The Stingers scored at 3:08
when Rich Leduc knocked the puck in with a sweet back handed shot, beating the Birmingham
defense by slipping the puck through goalie Wayne Wood's skates. The Bulls scored another
goal after Jacques Locas went off for hooking. The Bulls goal came when Paul Henderson
took a sharp pass from Dale Hoganson and shot the puck past Liut at 10:25. With less then
two minutes remaining in the opening period, rookie Oiler Ken Linsman took the puck away
from Ron Plumb while Cincinnati was on the power play. Linseman raced all alone into the
Stingers ice and fired a hard shot into the net for a 3-1 Birmingham lead.
The atmosphere never changed much as
the second period commenced and finally deteriorated to the point where Cincinnati coach
Jacques Demers was ejected from the game. When Gilles Marotte and former Stinger Frank
Beaton got tangled up at 6:55. Marotte drew four minutes while Beaton only drew two.
Demers was so irate that he began chucking hockey sticks onto the ice. He came out after
referee Peter Moffat but was restrained by his players and left the game. As he walked in
anger towards the dressing room, a Bulls fan dumped a drink on him. Demers tried to go
after the fan but a security guard stopped him. Demers faded into the dressing room after
shoving the guard out of his way. He was replaced by player personnel director Jerry
Rafter. The Bulls capitalized on it and scored their fourth goal of the game at 10:04 when
Dave Gorman knocked the puck into the net on a backhanded rebound shot. The Bulls scored
again at 17:13 when Linesman slipped one past Dion on a hard shot from the slot.
Third period ? Info not
available.
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