SPHL Knoxville Ice Bears

Ice Bears' Sink RiverKings

February 18, 2012 - SPHL (SPHL)
Knoxville Ice Bears News Release


KNOXVILLE, TN - The Knoxville Ice Bears faced off with the Mississippi RiverKings tonight at the Civic Coliseum in front of a crowd of 3,842. This was the eighth matchup between the teams this season. With a 5-3 win tonight, the Ice Bears locked their sixth win of the eight games.

The Ice Bears played an aggressive first period. They registered their first goal at 15:06 when Captain Kevin Swider backhanded the puck to Eric Satim who redirected it past RiverKings' goalie Scott Darling, giving the Ice Bears a 1-0 lead. The goal was also assisted by Emery Olauson.

Only 51 seconds later, the RiverKings answered the Ice Bears' goal and the first period ended with the teams tied at 1.

The physical play continued into the second period. At 14:18, Knoxville's Berkley Scott was penalized for diving and Mississippi's Matthew Russo was sent to the box for tripping, leaving the teams skating 4-on-4.

SPHL leading defensive scorer Mark Van Vliet skated the puck to his left around a RiverKings player and shot it to the net. His eleventh goal of the season was assisted by Swider and Ricky Helmbrecht.

The Ice Bears successfully killed off a RiverKings 5-on-3 advantage for 1:12 as Helmbrecht and Jason Ford were serving penalties. The RiverKings could not find the right combination to push past Kyle Rank - ending the second period leading 2-1.

The third period began with the Ice Bears skating 4-on-5 for 5 seconds. 11:08 into play former Ice Bear Mike Tuomi shot past Knoxville goalie Rank on a fluky goal to tie the game at 2.

The teams returned to 4-on-4 play when Tyler Fletcher and Kevin Fukala were each penalized 2 minutes at the 9:30 mark. Segal picked up the puck from Steve Wiedler and shot; Helmbrecht corralled the rebound and buried it in at 10:20 to push Knoxville to a 3-2 lead.

Just 6:39 later, Mike Towns made a clean pass to Kyle Van Dermale who put it straight into the net on Darling's glove side boosting their lead to 4-2. The goal was also assisted by Van Vliet.

Kyle Lundale scored Mississippi's final goal on a power play at 18:44. Mississippi pulled Darling from the net to skate with an extra attacker in an attempt to force overtime. Dan Bremner destroyed any hope of a tie when he shot the puck 160 feet down the ice from in front of the Ice Bears goal and scored an unassisted, empty net to seal victory 5-3.

The Knoxville Ice Bears return to home ice tomorrow night, Saturday Feb.18, to host the Huntsville Havoc for their second game of the weekend. The game will feature the final round of the 2012 Miss Ice Bears competition sponsored by Ray's ESG to support the Scarecrow Foundation. Come out and cheer on your favorite contestant. Puck drops at 7:30.

Check out the Knoxville Ice Bears Statistics



SPHL Stories from February 18, 2012


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