Bears maul Wildcats

The Bears buzz around the Wildcats goal in the third period in which they scored four times in an NDA semifinal blowout over the Widdifield Wildcats. Photo by Chris Dawson.

The St. Joseph-Scollard Hall Bears completed their sweep of the Widdifield Wildcats on Friday night with a convincing 9-1 victory and winning the best-of-three series in two straight and move onto the NDA hockey final.

The Bears got out to another quick start building up a 5-0 lead after one period of play. In game one the Cats rebounded after a similar deficit to make a game out of it in an 8-5 loss to the Bears in game one, however in game two the Bears didn’t give the Cats a chance to get back into this one.

“I think we played a much better defensive game than we played in game one,” said Bears head coach John Wilson.

“We talked about it before being defensively responsible and it doesn’t matter how many you score you give up more than you score you’re not going to win and we’ve got to cut down on the oppositions chances and I thought tonight we did a better job of cutting down their scoring chances and our guys just played a more complete game.”

Travis Kivimaki had three goals to lead the Bears scoring parade, while Matt Thoma added a pair and singles went to Guy Wallace, Brad Hummel, and Nick Fava.

The Widdifield Wildcats only goal came on a 5 on 3 powerplay in the final minute of the game as Adam Courvoisier broke the Bears shutout at 19:20.

Finals are set

The Chippewa Raiders punched their ticket to the NDA final by sweeping the FJ McElligott Voyageurs Friday night winning 6-2 in Mattawa Friday night in their best-of-three semifinal.

The NDA hockey finals will start Wednesday night.