Black Hawks to play home games

The Houlton-Hodgdon Black Hawks split a pair of games to make their season record 2-3 last Saturday with a 3-2 victory over Old Town at the Alfond Arena in Orono and a 5-0 loss to No. 1 Brewer.
    The Old Town game saw the Black Hawks outshoot the Coyotes by a 40-9 margin, but they were snake bit when it came to finding the back of the net.
“There where at least four times I thought the puck was in the net only to see it careening around the end boards,” said Black Hawks coach Joel Trickey.
The game saw the Black Hawks fall behind 1-0 after one period, but they came back to tie it early in the second as Dylan Gard finished off a nice play by potting the puck into an open net to finish a play that involved all three players on his line, assists went to Cody Briggs and Nick Chase on the play. While the Black Hawks continued to dominate the play in the second, Old Town took a 2-1 lead into the locker room, as a turnover in the final minute resulted in a shot from the top of the right face off circle that eluded goaltender Malik Abouleish.
The third period saw the Black Hawks knot the score at 2-all as defenseman Kam Lincoln slid the puck to Briggs in the high slot and Briggs backhanded the puck past the Coyote netminder. The go-ahead goal came on a great individual effort on the penalty kill. The Coyotes brought the puck into the Black Hawks zone and defenseman Jake Peabody took the puck away from an Old Town forward at the right hash mark. He slid the puck up the boards to Ben Ward and Ward was off to the races down to the Old Town end. He eluded an Old Town defender just inside the blue line and cut across the front of the net. Ward slid the puck into the net to give the Black Hawks a short-handed goal and the eventual win.
“We are very happy with the effort the team put in this game,” said Trickey. “The kids followed the game plan and even though it didn’t result in a lot of goals, we had numerous chances and so many near misses that it was a very encouraging effort. When the team gives 110 percent every shift we have a chance to win every game we’re in. Hopefully this game will carry over into the next and on into the rest of the season. There’s a lot of hockey yet to be played and the kids seem to understand that in order to win we have to outwork the other teams we play. Our next big test comes against number-one ranked Brewer today at the Penobscot Ice Arena. If the kids can come up with a big effort who knows what will happen.”
In Brewer, the Black Hawks played well but every time they started to gain momentum they were assessed a penalty that took them back out of the game. Brewer chipped away at the Black Hawks with two first-period goals another in the second and two late in the game for the 5-0 victory.
“We never really got a flow going as we took several what I would call marginal penalties whenever we started to take control of the game,” Trickey said. “The penalty killing took its toll on us and despite several good scoring chances; we never got the goal we needed to get us started. We’ve had trouble putting the puck in the net so far this year but with so many close ones we think it’s just a matter of time before we bust out in a big way.”
The Black Hawks will play Orono today at 6 p.m. and Saturday against Hampden at 2 p.m.
“These games will finally give our fans a chance to come out and see how we look this year and cheer us on,” Trickey added. “Hopefully we will have good crowds to watch these two important games.”