By Derek Kaye,
Castlegar News contributor
It was another night of exciting hockey at the Castlegar Complex on Friday, December 27 in front of a very busy stand of supporters for both the Castlegar Rebels and the Beaver Valley Nitehawks. It was a win for Beaver Valley with a final 6-4 score, although the Rebels were up 4-2 at the end of the second period. It was in the third period that Beaver Valley dominated the play and ultimately scored four times against the Rebels.
Beaver Valley started the game with two goals in the first five minutes by Dallas Calvin (Archie Mckinnon) and Ryan Edwards (Dallas Calvin). The Rebels started their rally forward with only 19 seconds left on the clock in the first period, by Dylan Bowerman (Matt Reed, Kody Disher).
The Rebels came out fighting in the second period with three goals by Darren Medeiros (Diego Bartlett, Jeremy McNeil) , Hunter Jenerou (Connor Beauchemin, Jeremy McNeil) and Matt Reed (Kody Disher, Carson Wornig) at 13:54, 12:02, and 9:50 on the clock. The fighting, however, was also very real, often instigated by Beaver Valley players with the result being a slew of fighting, misconduct and game misconduct penalties for both teams, and with a grand total of 24 infractions. Although none of this was out of the ordinary for Rebels' home games, having had a similar total in the last event as well. But what was disturbing was the very unsportsmanlike behaviour from a Beaver Valley coach who not only verbally assaulted a referee but was making rude hand gestures between breaks in verbal expletives and then left the bench himself in what seemed to be a self-imposed game misconduct. This charade only provided delays of the game but also took away the very free-spiritedness of play.
Interviewed after the game, Rebel Mike Bhatoa (who received a game misconduct during the second period and will not be dressing for the next game) said he did not feel the Beaver Valley coach's actions were very appropriate and was glad the Castlegar coaching staff was of a more sportsmanlike breed altogether. He also commented that to win against the Nighthawks the Rebels were going to have to "keep them out of the box" for the next game in Beaver Valley Saturday, December 28. The Nitehawks are in second place in the Neil Murdoch Division with Castlegar Rebels in third. The Nelson Leafs are still in first place in the division.