Photo by: Paul Wright

Day 3 of the 2023 Allan Cup Challenge tournament continued saw the Hamilton Steelers facing off against the Innisfail Eagles. The ACH Robertson Cup champion Steelers looked to give themselves a chance to advance to the tournament semi-finals.

Innisfail looked to have scored the game’s opening goal just two minutes into the game, but the puck had slid under the net when it was dislodged. Then five minutes later the Eagles rang it off the cross bar.

The ringing of the bar must have woken the Steelers up as Michael Riley collected a rebound and found the back of the Innifail net for a 1-0 Hamilton lead at 7:58 of the first. A couple minutes later, Cam Sault was sent out of the defensive zone by a Mark Taylor pass. Sault would out-skate the Eagles defense and ripped a shot from the faceoff dot to extend the Steelers lead to 2-0.

Innisfail had a bunch of chances to get on the board in the opening period, including 33 and 53 second two-man advantages, but they were unable to get one of their 12 shots on net past Daniel Svedin.

In the second period, the special teams took over as the teams combined for six goals, five of which were scored with the man advantage and one shorthanded.

Colton Hayes got the Eagles on the board five seconds into their first power play of the period, snapping a shot from the top of the faceoff dot. The Steelers almost got that goal back a minute later when a shot trickled along the goal line but never fully entered the net.

Chris Leveille then scored a power play goal on a goal mouth scramble at 7:12 and on a shorthanded breakaway on the backhand at 10:33. Innisfail would go on to score three straight power play goals by Parker Smith, Justin Faryna and Ty Clay to send the teams the dressing room tied at four.

Innisfail took the lead just before the halfway point of the third when Clay scored his second of the game after Zane Jones tipped a pass to him. The Steelers looked to tie the game with three minutes to go in the game, but they put one off the post and could not convert on a goal mouth scramble.

Hamilton would eventually tie the game with 1:28 remaining on the clock on Riley’s second of the contest. Then with 33.1 seconds left on the clock Andrew Whalen scored from the shot, giving the Steelers their first victory of the tournament.

With the win, Hamilton stays alive in the tournament. Both the Steelers and Innisfail finish the round robin with a 1-2-0 record and await the result of Thursday’s game to see who will advance to the semi-final on Friday night.

Boxscore: http://stats.pointstreak.com/boxscore.html?gameid=3624658

On Thursday night, Dundas and Clarenville will close out the tournament’s round robin portion of the schedule at the J. L. Grightmire Arena starting at 7:30pm. Prior to the game the 2014 Allan Cup Champion Real McCoys will be honoured.

The 2023 Allan Cup Challenge organizing committee also announced on Wednesday that Saturday’s championship game will be played at 3:30pm and will be broadcast live locally by Cable 14 Hamilton and online at Cable14Now.com.

Upcoming Games
Thursday, April 20
Dundas vs Clarenville – 7:30pm

Friday, April 21
Semi-final – 7:30pm

Saturday, April 22
Championship – 3:30pm