By: Michael Bennett, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Ridgetown Independent News
The Ridgetown Royals will need to dust off their home ice magic to keep their Governor’s Cup hopes alive.
The Buffalo Tempest defeated the Royals 7-3 on Saturday night in Buffalo in the first game in the American Premier Hockey League Eastern Conference best-of-three final, as Ridgetown will be on the brink of elimination when the series resumes in two weeks.
The Royals host Game 2 on Saturday, April 11 at 7 p.m., and with a win will play Game 3 on Sunday, April 12 at 12 noon, both in the Ken Houston Memorial Ag Centre in Dresden.
The Royals were a perfect 12-0 at the East Kent Memorial Arena while putting together a 19-5 record, the best in the APHL regular season.
They also won their first playoff game in Dresden, a 14-0 rout over the Thousand Island Raiders on March 21 to clinch the best-of-three division semifinal in two straight.
In Saturday’s opener in Buffalo, the Royals never led after Michael Houlihan’s late first-period power-play goal and Matthew Stewart’s goal 48 seconds into the middle frame.
Nolan VandenBoorn, the APHL’s regular-season scoring champion, put the Royals on the board with a power-play goal 12:13 into the second period to make it a one-goal game.
Four minutes later, Stewart restored the Tempest’s two-goal lead.
VandenBoorn countered with his second of the period just 27 seconds later, only to see Spencer Hrynczak reply 36 seconds later to send the Tempest into the second intermission with a 4-2 lead.
Houlihan’s second power-play goal gave the Tempest a 5-2 lead nine minutes into the third.
The Royals again answered quickly as Brendan Ritchie scored 14 seconds later, assisted by VandenBoorn for his third point of the night, to cut the margin to two goals.
But that was as close as the Royals would get as Hrynczak scored his second with 6:48 left and Stewart completed his hat trick in the final minute.
Steve Beenackers assisted on both VandenBoorn goals.
The Royals had a total of 54 penalty minutes, including fighting majors to Erik Winter and Beenackers and 10-minute misconducts to Zander Wright and Ian Campbell.
The Tempest had 33 minutes in penalties, including one fighting major and one 10-minute misconduct.
The series winner advances to the Governor’s Cup best-of-five series against the winner of the Western Division final between the Summit City Distillers and Western Michigan Sentinals.
The APHL does not schedule games on weekdays or the Easter Holiday weekend, which is why there is a two-week gap between games in the division finals.
