Mountain View Colts 5, Medicine Hat Cubs 4 — Final
The Mountain View Colts survived a wild, heavily penalized game against the Medicine Hat Cubs on Saturday night at Kinplex Arena, winning 5-4 in a contest that saw 101 combined penalty minutes and ended with Cubs goaltender Kayden Van Ham ejected for fighting.
Colby Gulliver opened the scoring for Medicine Hat just 5:41 into the game, but Mountain View answered twice before the period ended — Beau Van Vlaanderen at 6:21 and Nate Smith at 15:46 — to take a 2-1 lead after twenty minutes. The second period was a track meet: Jaxon Bohrn tied it for Medicine Hat at 2:45, Lucas Billings restored Mountain View’s lead at 11:13, and then the Cubs scored twice in 32 seconds — a power-play goal from Brennan Finke and one from Jesse Klimosko — to go up 4-3. Nate Smith’s second of the night at 16:15 tied it back up 4-4 heading to the third.
Sawyer Campbell’s goal at 11:01 of the third proved to be the game-winner. The game turned chaotic in the final minutes: at 14:01, a fight involving Medicine Hat goaltender Kayden Van Ham resulted in fighting and instigator penalties plus a hit-to-the-head major, ending his night with a game misconduct — Hudson Corbett came on in relief and stopped all 6 shots he faced to close it out. Mountain View finished 0-for-14 on an absurd number of power-play chances; Medicine Hat was 1-for-12.
William Steingart made 27 saves on 31 shots for the Mountain View win.