By Thomas Perry, The Daily Press (Timmins)
TIMMINS – Super Bowl Sunday?
Forget the halftime show and all of those silly commercials. The real entertainment value for your dollar was at the McIntyre Arena Sunday afternoon.
The Timmins Rock and the Elliot Lake Wildcats needed overtime to decide the outcome of their NOJHL contest — with Jordan Rendle scoring to ensure the fans went home happy.
That might be entertainment enough for some folks, but there was plenty of bonus action, as well, with the Timmins Timbits — coached by Rock assistant coach Eric Paquette — dividing their forces dividing their forces to take on the South Porcupine Timbits and Schumacher Timbets at either end of the rink immediately following the first period of play.
If they could have rounded up a few more players for a game at centre ice it would have been a real three-ring circus atmosphere, but the 624 fans in attendance got more than a few chuckles, as it was.
Then, between the second and third periods there was a quarter-final Shoot to Win shootout between the coaches of the Schumacher Sharks and Porcupine Minor Hockey Association Blades.
Each coach had 10 pucks — lined up on the near blue-line — with the object being to see which coach could deposit as many of them in the open net the fastest.
On the surface it might sound easy, but when the clock is ticking and the fans are cheering, the pressure can become pretty intense.
Sponsored by Goldcorp, the event has been running for a number of weeks now and will conclude at the Rock home game on Wednesday, March 9.
Following the game, fans got an opportunity to skate with the Rock players and get their photo snapped.
And when everything was said and done, everybody was able to make it home in time to watch the Super Bowl — with its lame halftime show and boring commercials — or just have supper, if football isn’t their game.