A huge weekend of ice hockey in the capital has seen the Caribou CBR Brave secure back-to-back wins, six points and top spot in the AIHL at the halfway mark of the season.

A hard-hitting, energy-sapping Saturday night in the Brave Cave at Phillip produced one of the best games of hockey ever played in Canberra. The Brave tamed their biggest rivals, Newcastle Northstars, in the ‘Battle of Nowhere’ with a down-to-the-wire 5-4 victory.

It is anything but easy-going when Newcastle come to town, and Saturday night was no different. There is always a derby atmosphere around the rink when these two teams meet. A good contingent of noisy Novocastrian supports made the trip down the Hume Highway to raise the noise decibels with competing chants with the Brave faithful.

In front of the Canadian High Commissioner to Australia, the game started with a bang with consecutive big checks by Northstars’ Zane ‘the train’ Jones on Mitch Henning leading to the Canadian-Aussie opening the scoring with a powerful shot from the left-hand side that Brave’s Aleksi Toivonen could not handle on his near post.

With the visitors up by a goal, the Brave turned up the intensity to find an equaliser. The fans didn’t have to wait long for the horns to ring out and the roof to lift off its rafters as Tyler Kubara levelled the game within 30 seconds of the restart with a close-range tap-in following a quick build-up by Charlie York and Kai Miettinen. Withstanding big hits, physical play and plenty of penalties, the Brave went ahead two minutes later through a team goal, full of silky-smooth passing, finished by Caron Vance in front of goals.

The second period had players coming and going from the penalty box on a rotational basis, with nine penalties dished out by the referee team. All the special team action on the ice gave the fans a feast of goal scoring opportunities with the Northstars scoring power play and shorthand goals, and the Brave scoring their own power play goal though Austin Albrecht.

The referees’ whistle did not let up in the third period, with another six penalties called.

As expected, special teams were on hand to shape the course of the game. The Brave imports came up trumps in the third period, a period the Brave normally do so well in this season.

First, Cameron Marks scored the go-ahead-goal with 11 minutes to play. The Northstars responded on the power play with bad-boy Tanner Butler finding some rare ice time out of the penalty box to level with three minutes to go. He threw his hand up high into the air, he thought he was on top of the world and here comes the late show by Newcastle for the third week straight. When Joey Hughes copped a soft slashing call and headed the box for the Brave, putting the visitors on the power play once more, they were licking their lips with anticipation of a boilover last minute win on the road.

But the Canberra flyers would have the last laugh as an errant pass by Canberra’s Casey Kubara in the neutral zone was not properly picked up by Northstars defence and Kubara’s last-ditch lunge sent the puck forward to Austin Albrecht who sped down the ice, wrapped around the goals, got the puck into the crease and somehow Félix Plouffe was able to tap the puck in amongst a melee of body parts as the Newcastle defence and goaltender scrambled to get the puck out. The arena went wild, in scenes not uncommon to a championship grand final victory. The Brave had done it, a massive 5-4 victory in front of a packed house over their biggest rivals.

SUNDAY

In the second game of the weekend, the Melbourne Ice travelled to Canberra on the overnight bus from Gosford on the Central Coast, arriving at 1am after a goal-fest against the Central Coast Rhinos the night before, where they won 14-8. They were looking to out-score the Brave on the small ice at Phillip.

The Brave did not start the game with as much intensity as the night before against Newcastle, and the visitors were able to build a good tempo for their carefully crafted ‘shoot on sight’ hockey strategy. Melbourne took the lead through Logan Gallacher, and just like the night before, this triggered the Brave into action.

Tyler Kubara and Félix Plouffe scored to give the Brave the lead. It looked like the Brave would head to the first intermission in the lead but a quick-fire two-goal stand by the Ice with 30 and 20 seconds remaining on the clock instead saw the Ice hit the sheds with a 3-2 lead.

The second period got a bit feisty with the Kubara brothers and ex Brave player Darcey Flanagan getting into penalty trouble, but on the scoreboard the teams were keeping things even. Two goals to the Ice and two to the Brave, leaving the Ice in the lead heading to the third period.

The Brave needed to rally in the third once more, and Félix Plouffe answered the home team’s call. The Québec native terrorised the Ice defence in the third, scoring two more goals to complete his quadruple for the night as well as adding two assists, as the Brave put five past the hapless Michael James in the Ice’s net. 

The comeback was complete, the Brave had stood up to the potent Ice attack and showed them who’s boss by outscoring them 9-7. A victory won in the third period.

With a clean sweep of the weekend, the CBR Brave boys were able to enjoy an after-game celebration as the team ascended to the summit of the AIHL standings for the first time in Season 2023.

• Sean O’Connor

Game Summary:
Saturday Final Score: Caribou CBR Brave 5 – 4 Newcastle Northstars

Sunday Final Score: Caribou CBR Brave 9 – 7 Melbourne Ice