D'anna's Hat Trick Seals Playoff Win

Tony D'anna netted a "natural" hat trick in the third period of an 8-2 first round playoff victory over the 6th seeded Moose. His three consecutive goals finished off the Moose squad that fought valiantly but could not keep up with a Bomber offense that seemed intent on taking care of business.

"Their goaltender was much better than the one we faced in our first contest." noted the Bomber's Neil Van der horn who ended up with 3 assists on the evening. One would might question how this could be since the netminder let in 8 goals on the night, but when you counter that with the fact he faced 63 Bomber shots it puts it back into perspective.

The Bombers were buzzing around the Moose net from the first drop of the puck, but were unable to chip one past in the first period. Bill Auld opened the scoring early in the second, less than a minute in. Exactly one minute later, Gary Simpson, bravely nursing an ankle injury, buried his breakaway chance. The Moose managed to capitalize on a rare Bomber miscue by Mike Rosenberg to cut the lead in half but #3 attoned for the error and scored his own 28 seconds later.

From that point on the Bombers never looked back scoring 4 straight goals-including a Bobby Orr'esque end to end attack by Adam Lapinski and the natural trick by D'anna.


The Moose were able to achieve a highlight of their own when their 4th line winger scored his first goal of his career-a fancy backhand shot that was met with much fanfare. Good work #23.

So the Bombers must await the winner of the Red Dogs and Sewer Rat contest. The winner will meet the Bombers on Wednesday at 10:15.

Bomber Box Score:

Goals:

D'anna (4,5,6)
Rosenberg (11,12)
B. Auld (10)
Simpson (4)
Lapinski (2)

Assists:

Simpson -3
Van der horn -3
B. Auld -2
Kostrowski
R. Auld
Burke

Game Notes:

The playoff victory against the Moose was the first at Bridgewater Sports Arena since March of 1995. The Bombers bested the Renegades in overtime 2-1.

The ice on the Red Rink at BSA was nearly unplayable. Players from both teams commented that the rink was better before they tried to fix it. "This is more like pond hockey" noted Adam Lapinski.