Thunderbirds Extend Win Streak to 9

By Zak DeBeaussaert 

Winston-Salem, NC - The Carolina Thunderbirds won a lengthy Friday game over the Mentor Ice Breakers after a broken door created a one hour and one minute delay at the Fairgrounds Annex. At the end of the night, the Thunderbirds extended their winning streak to nine games with an 8-1 victory.

Tommy Mahoney got the goal scoring started less than four minutes into the game. When Peter Cicmanec doubled the Thunderbirds lead, Ice Breakers Coach Iain Duncan had seen enough and pulled his starter John Sellie-Hanson. Backup Derek Moser did not have much luck of his own, after both Jiri Pargac and Jiri Pestuka scored 96 seconds apart to give the game a 4-0 scoreline heading into the first break.

It was more of the same in the second as Jiri Pargac scored his second of the night on some tic-tac passing from Joe Cangelosi and Jan Salak. Then, Peter Cicmanec chased another goaltender out when he scored 4:09 into the second period to give the Thunderbirds a 6-0 lead. Mentor would get their only goal of the night on a 2-on-1 setup by Nate Farrington and finished off by Brett Oldaker. The second period would end with that 6-1 scoreline.

In the third period, Carolina came out strong once again and Mentor was even more determined to play the body and apply some sandpaper to the Thunderbirds. This was put center stage when numerous hits between Dominik Fejt and Ivan Vilcauskas came to a head with Fejt hitting Vilcauskas hard into the boards, causing a door to break. While the door was able to shut after the hit, the support was not up to standard and created a lengthy delay that went just over an hour between hit from Fejt and puck drop to resume play. 

After the 1:01 delay (hours and minutes), the Thunderbirds gave those fans that stuck around something to cheer about with two goals from Chase Fallis and Joe Cangelosi. Then just for good measure, Fejt and Vilcauskas dropped the gloves in the final minutes.

Christian Pavlas picks up his 10th straight victory tonight, stopping 18 of 19 shots. John Sellie-Henson picks up the loss, stopping 21 of 25 shots he faced; Derek Moser in part-time relief stopped 14 of 18.

Carolina skates to their ninth straight victory in front of a crowd of 2,685 and will look for win number 10 tomorrow night against the same Ice Breakers team with a 6:05 PM puck drop.

3 Stars of the Game:
Jiri Pargac
Peter Cicmanec
Joe Cangelosi 

Attendance: 2,685

Photo credit: V. Khouri