Local All-stars defeated 12-5

Ken Johnston

Nearly 300 people were treated to a great game last Wednesday as the NHL Oldtimers faced off against the Rainy River All Stars at the Rainy River Arena.
The game started with all the fanfare of an NHL hockey game. Dorothy Leininger and Ericka Tymkin sang both the Canadian and American national anthems while the players lined up on the blue lines.
The players were all introduced and the battle began.
The crowd sat on the edge of their seats waiting to see how the local boys would fair against the former professional hockey players. Ted Heyens, an RR All Star draft pick from Stratton, got a huge rise out of the audience as he broke out across the NHL blue line early in the first period. A minute or so later he then delivered a goal that had the fans thinking, maybe our boys will be the first ones to defeat the NHL’ers in 87 games. Assisting Heyens on the goal was Mickey Gustafson.
Tight defense and good goal tending kept the scoring at bay for another four minutes. At the 6:52 mark a local boy playing for the NHL team, Jeremy Beller scored unassisted to tie the game.
Another nine minutes then went by before former Edmonton Oiler Glen Anderson scored at the 16:01 mark unassisted.
Rainy’s Kirk Wood breached the NHL defenses and tied it at 2-2 with only 1:43 left in the period. Another highlight for the crowd was a short-lived jostle between the gigantic Dave Semenko and local Vaughn Murray. Semenko, made Murray look small out there and when he tossed Murray an elbow, the crowd went wild.
Shots on goal for the first period were 13 for RR and 12 for NHL.
1:20 into the second period another local boy playing for the NHL team, Joel Ashworth, scored with an assist by Bryan Trottier.
Ashworth scored again with an assist by Morris Lukowich at 3:46. Jeff Odgers then scored another NHL goal to widen their lead 5-2 at 4:53.
RR returned fire at 12:26 and 14:30 with goals by Vaughn Murray and Brian Barron. Jim Chorney and Ted Heyens picked up assists respectively.
With less than two minutes left in the period another local boy, Chad Armstrong assisted by Jeff Odgers scored on RR. With only one second left Brian Trottier picked the upper left corner to score their seventh goal. It was 7-4 after two and the NHL team outshot RR 18-8.
In the second intermission the teams had a showdown. RR won that.
The third period belonged to the NHL’ers. Jeff Odgers opened the scoring with an assist by Butch Goring at 4:35. About a minute later Dave Semenko scored with an assist from Jeremy Beller.
Rainy’s only goal in the period came at the 7:38 from Mickey Gustafson, assisted by Ted Heyens.
The NHL team then went on a scoring spree. Butch Goring scored at 11:25 assisted by Semenko and Beller.
Trottier scored at 13:05 and then Beller scored at 17:30 to cap the 12-5 victory. Final shots on goal was 45-30 for the NHL.
After the game both teams posed for the audience to take photos and then a mix and mingle was held in the community centre and later at the local legion.