Baldwin Highlanders - 1975 & 1988 AAA

Canon McMillan 5 Indiana 3 SOUTHPOINTE – Indiana has started off the regular season 1-1-0 with a victory over Chartiers Valley 5-3 and an opening loss to Greensburg CC 3-1. The Indians season appeared in jeopardy a lot earlier than that as the Indiana Ice Center closed in July due to mechanical difficulties and the status of the rink fka the ‘House of King Samuel’ turned into the House less King Samuel’ was up in the air for most of the summer. Finally, after much lobbying by Indiana Hockey supporters the rink re-opened prior to the start of the regular season saving hockey in Indiana, not only for HIS, but for IUP and the Indiana Amatuer Hockey Association, but the casualty would be Sam Kelly, who has dedicated much of his career to hockey in the town and if anyone had common sense would realize that the first coach of the Indiana program is a builder and would find a way to make sure he is employed at the rink he made flourish. Canon McMillan is also to off to a slow start at 1-2-1 after a great season and capturing the number #1 seed berth in 2004-2005, which was easily its best season in the clubs history. The Big Macs schedule has been murderer’s row with all teams who made last season’s Penguins Cup quarterfinals including an opening night loss to Montour 4-2, a 3-3 tie in Kittanning, a 6-4 win over Elizabeth Forward and a 7-4 loss to undefeated West Allegheny resulting in a 1-2-1 record. Tonight’s game is a key early season matchup between two teams with playoff positioning aspirations and could be a tiebreaker game come March 1. This game between Head Coach Dom Glavech’s Indiana club and Dave Fryer’s Canon McMillan club was end to end with good action at both ends. The best Big Mac chance came at 7:16 of the first period as Jesse Patnesky had the Indiana goaltender down but could not beat him and then Nick Cusilito shot the rebound and a sprawling Mike Kennedy stopped him. Moments later, Joe Appolonia had a chance on a partial break, but Michael O’Neill was equal to the task. Indiana went on the power play with 1:42 remaining in the first period, but it was the Big Macs Justin Cormack who provided the fireworks as he stripped the Indiana defenseman of the puck and fired a forehand low on the ice past Mike Kennedy for a shorthanded goal with 41 seconds remaining to give CM a 1-0 lead. At 14:44 of the second, Indiana was caught napping again as Jesse Patnesky took a Cormack steal and deposited a backhand high over the shoulder of Mike Kennedy for a 2-0 lead for Canon McMillan and two shorthanded tallies. At 14:10 another penalty on the Big Macs and just 19 seconds later another chance for the Big Macs, which Kennedy stopped. With 11:56 remaining in the middle period, the Big Macs went on the power play, but the Indians were able to keep the score 2-0. Indiana’s Troy Gaydosh had a great opportunity with 7:25 to play in the period on a 2 on 1, but Mike O’Neill turned aside a wrist shot to keep the Indians off the board. With 4 ½ minutes left Canon Mac threw a flurry of shots at the Indiana goal and Mike Kennedy made several brilliant saves the last robbing Corey Griffith from on the doorstep to keep it a two goal deficit for his team. On the power play for CM again at 3:32 and the Big Macs finally were able to solve Kennedy as Jesse Patnesky picked up his second goal, this time a power play goal for a 3-0 lead. On to the third and the Big Macs struck again at 12:17 as Matt Rivetti found a wide open Corey Griffith in front and fed him for a quick one timer past Kennedy and a 4-0 lead. Then with 9:45 remaining in the third, the Indians struck as Joe Appolonia scored on a rebound of Jay Pettina over a fallen O’Neill to make it 4-1 and brought the intimate gathering of ‘Concerned Citizens of Indiana’ to their feet. At 9:26, the Indians had a chance to creep closer on the power play and they did as Steven Geisel caught O’Neill off the post and a wraparound later at 7:37 brought our count to 4-2 with plenty of time remaining. Then the old adage to throw anything to the net applied as Adam Rusiewicz wrested a shot to the net, which resulted in a rebound which John Ogden deposited past O’Neill with 3:32 left and all the sudden it was 4-3. A hush fell over the throng of very ‘Concerned Citizens of Canon McMillan’ crowd in attendance, but was restored to a roar as Jesse Patnesky deposited an empty netter for the hat trick with 46.6 seconds left for a 5-3 Big Mac lead and the victory as the clock ran out on Indiana.