By Ryan O’connor
CONCORD – Walking into Concord’s Douglas N. Everett Arena wearing a Bow Falcons cap and a Goffstown Grizzlies sweatshirt, John House-Myers received his share of grief from students and parents in attendance.
“What would you do?” the Bow High School principal said with a defiant grin.
After all, his son, Liam, stars at Goffstown.
And as the hockey game progressed, the smile only increased in size.
With the Falcons up 2-0 after the first period, the junior House-Myers lit the lamp three times – the last on a laser that found an almost non-existent hole over goalie Collin Evans’ left shoulder – to put the Grizzlies ahead.
Would the ecstatic father throw his lid on the ice to commemorate his son’s hat trick?
“Not so fast,” said nearby Bow Athletics Director Jim Kaufman. “There’s still plenty of hockey to play.”
Indeed, the third period featured six goals, including another House-Myers tally and an assist, and Goffstown earned a 6-5 victory on Saturday, Jan. 5.
The result brought the Grizzlies to .500 on the season, tied with the 3-3 Falcons for sixth place in Division II.
“I clearly challenged this club between the first and second periods, and I think what happened here is that our best players played like our best players,” said GHS head coach Peter Bedford. “We’ve never defeated Bow in my (four-year) tenure, so to go and beat them in their barn, under these circumstances, in a shootout, is just awesome for us and shows how resilient we are.
“This is the proudest I’ve ever been of this club.”
Bedford said his squad is entering a stretch of several winnable games and hopes the comeback against a perennial power like Bow propels the team to a first-round home playoff game.
For Bow coach Tim Walsh, the contest serves as a reminder that the D-II landscape is far too dangerous to let up on an opponent, especially one as talented as Goffstown.
“The first period was the best we’ve played all year. The second period was one of the worst we’ve played all year,” he said. “We have to become a complete team. We need to play for 45 minutes, and we have yet to do that this year. I think we’re an immature team, experience-wise, but I’ve seen what we can do when we play our game. We just need to do it for a longer period of time.”
Though both coaches agreed the scoring fest would be difficult to repeat, each said a playoff rematch is a definite reality.
For those in the stands, that’s great news.
The elder House-Myers compared the contest, which featured 19 penalties, to a heavyweight boxing match: one boxer won the first round, and the other the second, before the gloves came off in the third.
Bow captain Brett Borbidge put the Falcons on top nine seconds into the contest with an unassisted goal, and fellow senior Andrew Hunter scored on an Eddie Berke assist later in the period.
After House-Myers and the Grizzlies put their foes on the ropes in the second period, the Falcons scored first in the third frame on a Greg Bueddeman goal assisted by Borbidge and Hunter.
A minute later, House-Myers and Patrick Gallagher aided an Eddie Berke tally, and Andrew Gordon scored on a shorthanded breakaway shortly after.
House-Myers’ fourth notch came with little more than three minutes remaining in the contest and was sandwiched by Bow jabs from Luke Enderwick and Bueddeman; Bruce Lacasse assisted both tallies.