The Slave Lake Winterhawks and Legal Vipers have played two 8 - 7 games this season and Sunday’s looked like it might end that way too. The ‘Hawks led 5 - 4 after two periods of swapping goals. Legal did their part, scoring three more times, but Slave Lake, despite a big advantage in shots on goal, lost their scoring touch when it mattered and ended up losing 8 - 5.
The way the play went for most of the first two periods, the ‘Hawks should have been ahead by three or four goals. They had that old familiar territorial dominance going, but never led by more than one goal. In fact bad bounces and defensive lapses allowed the overmatched Vipers to take the lead at one point in the second. The ‘Hawks got that right back, starting with a nice individual effort by Scott Sinclair and then added another to go ahead 5 - 4 late in the third. But that was apparently all they had in their bag of tricks.
In their earlier meetings, the ‘Hawks won 8 - 7 and then Legal won 8 - 7. The Vipers have come on strong and now lead the North Division of the North Central Hockey League over the defending champion Lamont Bruins.
The ‘Hawks have now fallen three games under .500 and have but one game remaining in the regular season. That’s against the woeful Fox Creek Bandits in Fox Creek this Saturday.
Judging by the turnout on recent road trips, this could be the Bandit’s best (not to mention only) chance for a win this season.

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