The Toronto Golden Jets began Day 3 of the Canadian men’s national championships in Calgary with a 8am semi-final against CAMO (Montreal). The Jets had earned the berth the previous day with a 21-4 quarter final victory over the Edmonton Tsunami.
CAMO begin the game pressing the Jets all over the pool. However, Toronto shooters surprised Montreal and propelled the Jets out to a 4-3 first quarter lead.
The Jets expanded their lead to four goals on two occasions in the second period getting ahead 9-5 half way through. However, CAMO caught fire and drilled in three goals in a little over a minute to pull within one. The Jets responded twice to CAMO’s once to take a 11-9 advantage into halftime.
The third quarter proved to be disastrous for Toronto in more ways than one as CAMO’s counterattack led to a 7-3 win putting Montreal ahead 16-14 entering the fourth. During the quarter, the Jets lost the services of starter Diego Gonzalez and captain Mike Chapman due to concussions.
Though the Jets played CAMO evenly despite being undermanned, it wasn’t enough and CAMO held on for a 19-17 victory.
Adam Mekni and Filip Resanovic paced the Jets attack with four goals apiece. Cam Hexter and Euan Scoffield both netted hattricks. Alex Leblanc, Sam Madadian and Richard Laurie added singles.
A little over three hours later, the Jets were back in the pool to face B.C. Storm in the bronze medal game. Both teams would play with only a couple of substitutes – Storm because they only brought 9 players and Toronto because Gonzalez and Chapman had to sit out due to the concussions received in the morning versus Montreal.
The teams tied each other in both of the first two quarters creating a 5-5 deadlock at halftime. A 6-4 third quarter put Storm in front heading into the final quarter.
However, Toronto clawed its way back in the first four minutes to tie the game 11-11 only to see Storm come right back to take a 12-11 lead. Both teams then missed glorious chances including a missed penalty shot by the Jets.
With 28 seconds remaining, Toronto got possession and head coach George Gross, Jr. immediately called time out. Against Saskatchewan on Day 1, the Jets had been in a similar situation and Gross, Jr. had pulled goalie Andrei Velasevic in favour of an extra shooter. The ploy had worked as Mekni won the game with less than a second remaining.
This time, using the same tactic, it was Sam Madadian playing the role of hero scoring with 7 seconds remaining to even the score and send the game into a shootout.
The Jets had not won a penalty shootout in several seasons so things did not look good. B.C. won the toss and elected to shoot first and scored. Toronto matched with its first attempt. Then, in round 2, Velasevic guessed correctly and made a great two handed save. When the Jets scored, the team grabbed a 2-1 lead with three shooters to go. All three Storm shooters scored as did the next two Jets shooters.
This set up the Jets’ final shot of the first round and a goal would mean a bronze medal. The hero at the end of regulation, Madadian again played the hero drilling home the game winning goal. Mekni, Scoffield, Resanovic and Laurie combined with Madadian for the perfect shootout round.
During regulation time, Leblanc was a one-man wrecking crew in the center scoring five times to lead the way for Toronto. Mekni followed with four markers. Madadian popped in a pair and Scoffield added the other.
The Jets arrived at the nationals minus their starting center forward and leading scorer (Ivan Khramtsov) and starting 6’7″ lefty (Sukhmun Hare) plus a shortened bench caused by the unavailability of the university students in the club due to exams. But those that played showed resilience, cohesiveness and heart and were deserving of the bronzde medal.
