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Bison lights up Blazers

Dutch import scores twice to give Cougars win over WHL rivals
Bartek Bison
Prince George Cougars player Bartek Bison had a big weekend against the Kamloops Blazers, scoring two goals and claiming first star on Saturday. In this January file photo, Bison looked for a way around Seattle Thunderbirds Bryan Allbee.

Bartek Bison gave his folks back home in Amsterdam plenty to talk about early Sunday morning.
The 18-year-old Prince George Cougars left winger scored two goals, then made a curtain call as the game’s first star in Saturday’s 4-2 win over the Kamloops Blazers.
For Bison, his fourth and fifth goals of the season marked the first time the Dutch import had scored more than one goal in a single game in his Western Hockey League career, much to the delight of a partisan CN Centre crowd of 3,870 which turned out on Heroes Night to watch an entertaining battle between the two B.C. Division rivals.
“We didn’t do a good job the last game so we needed this, a good bounce-back this game, and we did all the things right and we came out with an important win,” said Bison, who cashed in playing on a line with Aaron Boyd and Josh Curtis.
“That was a really exciting moment, it’s always a good feeling to have two goals in one game. If we do the small things right, pay attention to detail and work our (butts) off we can do anything.”
Bison says his parents, Iwaona and Pieter, usually get up early in the day to watch the Cougars play on webcasts. The game ended at about 7 a.m. Sunday, Dutch time, and he was looking forward to making that phone call and texting his buddies back home.
“I’ll have a different topic to talk about today,” smiled Bison. “I call my parents after every game, usually the day after, to let them know how the game was. I always wait until my dad says something. I’ll just tell him I had a great day and I feel good. He’s watching all the games and he knows.”
The win kept the Cougars (14-3-2-0) first overall in the WHL, nine points ahead of the Blazers (10-9-1-0), who remain third in the B.C. Division.
After a scoreless first period the Blazers and Cougars started getting pucks into the net. With the teams playing 4-on-4, Cougars winger Brad Morrison picked off a Blazer pass in the Kamloops end and fed the puck over to defenceman Max Martin, who ripped a low wrist shot through Dylan Ferguson’s legs. The Blazers responded a minute later. Rudolfs Balcers, a Latvian import in his first WHL season, took a lead pass from Conner McDonald and went to his backhand side to fool Ty Edmonds with a low shot.
With about four minutes left in the period, Blazer forward Spencer Bast took a double minor for high-sticking Josh Anderson, who went right to the dressing room. But before the Cougars’ power play could get established, Colin Shirley intercepted a backhand pass from pointman Tate Olson and finished his breakaway with a backhand deke, the second shorthanded goal the Cougars have allowed in the past two games. Olson made up for his mistake not long after that, blocking the Blazers’ clearing attempt at the line. His hard low shot was stopped by Ferguson but the rebound landed right on the stick of Bison, who snapped it in.
The Cougars appeared to take the lead with 7.5 seconds left in the second period. Brogan O’Brien fed the puck over to pinching Cougars defenceman Shane Collins, who found the corner of the net behind Ferguson. But the goal was immediately waved off when Cougars winger Kolby Johnson was found guilty of goaltender interference.
The Cougars got that one back 1:15 into the third period while killing Johnson’s penalty. Jansen Harkins left a drop-pass just inside the blueline for Jesse Gabriele, who got all his might into a bullet shot from the face-off circle that ripped over Ferguson’s shoulder. That turned out to be the winning goal.
“We made a couple mistakes in the third period, obviously the shorthanded goal hurt us when we could have had the momentum if we’d scored on the power play,” said Blazers head coach Don Hay.
“It was a pretty even game, back and forth, and it’s disappointing. The Cougars have gotten off to a great start, our first time seeing them and I think we match up good with them, so the next seven games should all be competitive. We get them back in Kamloops next weekend.”
Bison added some insurance at 15:21 of the third, a play started when centre Aaron Boyd won a defensive zone face-off and chipped the puck ahead, setting up a 2-on-2 chance. Bison drove to the net from the side and knocked the puck in with a one-handed backhander to cap the scoring.
Heading into the game, the Cougars had lost four of their last five games on home ice, including a 6-4 loss to Medicine Hat on Wednesday. Collins said it was time his team rewarded their fans for their support.
“We definitely wanted to come out better than we have lately. We haven’t been real great at home and the first two periods we weren’t real great in this one either, but the third period we came out and played really well and took the game from them,” said Collins.
“Bartek goes to the net hard and he always likes to throw his body around and it was nice to see him get rewarded. At the end, we finally got our power play figured out in that four-minute one and started moving the puck around well and we got a goal and that gave us some momentum.”
Both goalies were kept busy in this one. Edmonds stopped 37 of 39 Kamloops shots to earn his 10th win of the season. Ferguson, the usual backup behind Canadian world junior team prospect Connor Ingram, in only his fifth start this season, made 34 saves.
The Cougars took advantage of the fact the Blazers played Friday night in Kamloops against Medicine Hat and were playing their fourth game in five nights. They held the Blazers to seven third-period shots. Bison’s second strike was the only even-strength goal of the game.
“It was one of those games where both teams gave up shorthanded goals,” said Cougars head coach Richard Matvichuk. “We changed some personnel (on the power play) and we have to have a shoot-first mentality and that changed the game. The direct result of Bison’s (power-play) goal was we shot the puck.”


LOOSE PUCKS: Cougars D Sam Ruopp served the first game of what many observers consider an excessive eight-game suspension. The 20-year-old Cougar captain took part in what the WHL called a “one-man fight against an unsuspecting opponent” at the end of Wednesday’s game at CN Centre against Medicine Hat. The rough stuff started when Cougars RW Kody McDonald slashed Chad Butcher while the teams lined up for a face-off with four-tenths of a second left. In the ensuing scrum, Ruopp skated by Tigers winger Steven Owre and punched him in the face. Owre dropped to the ice and Ruopp jumped on him, grabbed at his jersey and shook him, landing one more punch before they were separated. McDonald was given a three-game suspension. The league also fined the Cougars $1,000 and Matvichuk was fined $500 for the actions of his players. In January 2015, Ruopp was suspended for five games for a knee-on-knee hit in a game against Everett, his second kneeing major and game misconduct that season and that might have been a factor in determining the length of his latest suspension. It’s the longest sentence the league has handed out since Victoria Royals F Brandon Magee was given 12 games for his match penalty after he twice cross-checked Portland Winterhawks players to the head during a playoff game in April 2012.