The Vancouver Stealth entered their home opener at the Langley Events Center on a cold, nasty night in mid January and despite the weather outside, it was just a frigid inside.
The
Stealth won both opening games, despite being on the road as first they faced-off against Calgary followed by a tilt in Colorado.
The first home game saw them host their rivals from Alberta, the Calgary Roughnecks in front of a near capacity crowd.
The Stealth opened the scoring on a Corey Small goal 4 and half minutes in to get the fans on their feet, only to see the Roughnecks score three straight as Riley Loewen Curtis Dickson and Jeff Shattler opened a 3-1 lead for the visitors.
Vancouver’s Ryhs Duch got one back making it 3-2 midway through the first quarter but Jeff Shattler managed to notch his second of the night a minute later doubled the Roughnecks lead to 4-2.
Small struck again cutting the Roughnecks lead to 4-3 with under 8 minutes remaining in the opening quarter only to have the visitors scored twice more to double the lead on goals by Dickson and former Stealth Tyler Digby ending the first quarter with a 6-3 difference.
Delta’s Logan Schuss got the Stealth back in the in the game in the second quarter 1:15 in making it 6-4 but again the Roughnecks banged off three straight goals opening up a 9-4 lead.
Vancouver managed to get one back before intermission with Jeff Durston scoring to make it 9-5 game at half.
Calgary’s offence rattled off three straight, with Digby getting his second of the game as well as Dobbie opening up a 12-5 lead.
Keegan Bal made it a 12-6 game but the Roughnecks Curtis Dickson (games first star) notched his 5th of the night putting Calgary up 13-6.
As the clubs entered the fourth quarter the Stealth offence banged of four straight goals, Corey Small (a pair) as well as adding his fifth of the night cutting in the lead to 13-9.
The teams split the last two goals with Curtis Dickson completing his double hat trick (6 goals) and Rhys Duch completing the scoring for the Stealth allowing the Roughnecks to grab a 14-10 victory.
Vancouver went 4-10 on the PP, giving up 3 goals on 5 SH chances giving the Stealth their first loss of the season falling to 2-1 in the west division standings.
The loss see’s them tied with the Colorado Mammoth for top spot as the Roughnecks evened their record at 1-1 on the year.
The Stealth they hit road for games in Buffalo (January 21st) and Saskatchewan (January 27th) before returning home for a match against Georgia on the 28th to close out the month.
Thanks to Bruce Nolte for article.
