Ottawa 67’s take down North Bay Battalion in Sunday afternoon win

The Ottawa 67’s came out of a Sunday home afternoon matchup with the North Bay Battalion, securing two points with a 6-3 win on Nov. 30 at TD Place in a game that had some fiery moments.

The previous and only meeting between the 67’s and Battalion this season came on Sept. 26, when Ottawa won 3-1 in North Bay.

The Battalion started strong, forcing the 67’s to make some crucial mistakes at both ends of the ice.

The Battalion tested 67’s starting goaltender Ryder Fetterolf very early on and forced him to make some key saves. To keep the Battalion off the board early.

However, it was only a matter of time as the Battalion made the 67’s pay at 6:10 of the first period after a failed clearing attempt was thrown on net by Battalion defenceman Adrian Manzo and tipped in by forward Parker Vaughan to make it 1-0 Battalion.

The 67’s responded when 67’s forward Spencer Bowes stayed patient off a juicy giveaway from Battalion goaltender Mike McIvor and buried a backhand.

The 67’s started off the second period with a huge power-play goal to take their first lead of the game, from forward Thomas Vandenberg for his eight of the season with a re-direction shot from the point that he didn’t give up on.

Battalion Cam Warren snuck behind the 67’s defence and walked in all alone to burry his fourth of the season past Fetterolf to tie the game up at two.

The 67’s had a couple of good shifts before being awarded another power-play, they did not disappoint as forward Vandenberg scored his second of the game and his ninth goal of the season to put the 67’s back up 3-2.

After Vandenberg scored, Battalion forward Shamar Moses cross checked a celebrating and defenceless Vandenberg near the face and chaos ensued. This resulted in another power play for the 67’s and allowed them to control the first 10 minutes of the second period. North Bay started to become reckless with penalty after penalty.

At the 11:29 mark of the second period, a hard shift paid off as the 67’s took a 4-2 lead. The puck managed to land right on the stick of 67’s defenceman Ondrej Ruml and he wired it past the glove of McIvor.

North Bay did not go away at all and managed to cut the 4-2 deficit to 4-3 as Battalion captain Ethan Procyszyn took advantage of a big rebound and roofed the puck upstairs on the diving Fetterolf at 12:42 of the second period.

Just as the second period came to a close, 67’s defenceman Connor Bewick and Battalion forward Nick Wellenreiter were jawing and yapping at each other until they finally agreed to drop the gloves and threw heavy and hard punches.

Bewick had the crowd absolutely fired up as he waved his hands up and headed to the penalty box.

Just 37 seconds into the third period, the 67’s regained their two goal lead as forward Shaan Kingwell went shot top shelf on McIvor to make it 5-3 for the 67’s.

Tempers continued to flare heavily in the third period, as with 8:09 remaining in the third period, a vicious high stick from Battalion captain Ethan Procyszyn led to another fight between Procyszyn and 67’s defenceman Kaleb Dietsch. Dietsch was given a two and 10 minute penalty game miscount for being an instigator in the fight, along with a five minute major for fighting which ended his night.

After the chaos settled down, the 67’s came out of it all with a four minute power play which didn’t take them long as 67’s captain Cooper Foster cashed in on a loose rebound that trickled in past McIvor to make it 6-3 at 12:01 of the third period.

Ottawa closed out the game and secured a hard fought 6-3 win over the Battalion to end the month of November with a win. In the month, with the win over North Bay, they finished the month with a record of 10-2.

67’s defenceman Kohyn Eshkawkogan said he was happy with the way the team ended the month.

“Yeah it’s a great way to have this weekend ending, two games this weekend and two wins. In December we will look to carry that momentum and next weekend, we’re looking to keep that streak going,” said Eshkawkogan.

Eshkawkogan said coach Dave Cameron had a message for the team as tempers increased during the game.

“The message we got from out coaches was to play between the lines and whistles and that’s what we did for the most part. You have to stick up for your teammates sometimes and that’s the way it goes,” said Eshkawkogan.