Andy Mak

5th February 2017

MegaBox

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Bears Fighters went into this fixture last night pitting their 2-game winning streak against the mighty (and unbeaten) Zerve Spartans last night, who in December attained a blowout victory against the Bears.

 

The game started at a fast pace where both teams worked to keep their win streak alive, with both goalies  looking sharp in the opening exchanges.

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It was to be the Spartans who cracked first, with a careless play from goalie Kevin Lam seeing him deflect a pass from a Bears' forward into his own net to set his team back by one goal.

 

However, the lead didn’t last very long for the Bears as the Spartans were relentless with their forechecking deep inside the Bears' zone, where they kept cycling the puck.

 

Their intense pressing soon paid off, with the Spartans' Derek Hu managing to evade two Bears players and deliver a saucer pass to Esmond Tam, putting him a 1-on-1 situation against Bears’ goalie Andy. Grasping the scoring opportunity, Tam sent Andy the wrong way with a deke to tie the game at one apiece.

 

The scores stayed level until the 2nd period, when the Spartans decided to force the issue with a barrage of potshots at Andy's goal but were restricted to speculative shots from poor angles by a resilient Bears' defence, who gave nothing away by closing down any rebounds. 

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Spartans' Kin Ip was then called for tripping penalty and sent to the sin bin for 2 minutes, but Bears didn’t take advantage of the first minute of the extra man until the Spartans exposed their defense on a 3 on 2 rush, which was saved by Andy.

 

Bears’ defenseman Chun Lok then retreated the rebound and launched a sweeping counter with a saucer pass to Falcon and Bears had two attackers against a sole Spartan defender. Falcon took a low shot at Kevin’s left pad and although Kevin made the initial save, the rebound fell nicely to Bears’ Ka Ho Ho’s stick and he scored the power play goal through Kevin’s five hole and restored the Bears' lead.

 

But the Zerve Spartans soon proved why they have been unbeaten in the league and applied a vice-like pressure on the Bears, with their defenseman Robert Kang finding a breakthrough when Bears players stayed too long on the ice and ran out of gas. With an impressive solo effort, Robert single handedly deked 3 Bears’ players and scored a beauty over Andy’s blocker to tie the game once more.

 

The game went into overtime which was dominated by a hailstorm of Spartan attacks, but Andy was in impressive form and turned everything away, thus keeping the Bears' unbeaten streak alive, securing the draw and bringing the Spartans' winning run to a screeching halt.

 

 

Next Fixture:

February 12th

Bears Fighters vs Raptors

11.00 pm

MegaBox