Suffield/Granby/Windsor Locks Avenges Loss to Tri-Town with 2-0 Victory

Hollywood couldn’t have scripted a better scenario for the Suffield/Granby/Windsor Locks co-operative hockey team with its game against Tri-Town at Enfield Twin Rinks on Saturday evening.

With the Northern Hockey Conference regular-season title on the line and the 14 team members from Granby honored before the game, the Division II Wildcats avenged their worst loss of the year with a 2-0 victory over the Division I Terrorcats (5-9-1), who crushed the Wildcats 9-1 in the season opener in December.

“I knew we could skate with them,” Suffield/Granby/Windsor Locks head coach Nick Boorman said. “I let them know, and I let the newspaper know, that it was going to be a different result the next time we played them.”

The teams’ first meeting was definitely on the minds of the Suffield/Granby/Windsor Locks players.

“It was pretty amazing to come back and shut them out,” Suffield/Granby/Windsor Locks defenseman Ian Stevens said. “We definitely improved over the first game and through the practices, we got better and better. We were a lot better team this time.”

Wildcats goalie Nick Burgio was nothing short of spectacular on Saturday evening, making 25 saves and all but standing on his head to earn the clean sheet.

“When he’s on top of his game, he’s as good if not better than any goalie that I’ve seen this year,” Boorman said.

Defensemen Tom Padrevita, Brendan Leonadi and Stevens also had great games keeping Tri-Town’s potent offense bottled up for long stretches of time.

“We never quit, we never got scared,” Boorman said. “We have the talent to beat anybody. We proved it tonight.”

The game was scoreless after two periods before Mike Thompson opened Suffield/Granby/Windsor Locks’ account at the 2:11 mark, when he took a feed from Stevens in the slot and rifled home a shot that beat Tri-Town goalie Mitch Diresta for a 1-0 advantage. It was Thompson’s 10th goal of the year.

The Terrorcats had their chances, particularly in the third period.

Ronnie Williams had a clear shot at goal at the 4:00 mark, only to be denied by Burgio; Tri-Town’s Zack Palmer rang a hard shot off the crossbar just over 30 seconds later.

Nicholas Binkowski had a breakaway, barreling down the left side, swooping across the goal to the right, only to be denied by a sprawling Burgio.

Tri-Town even had a two-man advantage late, but the Suffield/Granby/Windsor Locks penalty-killing unit of Dylan Rupp, Stevens, Padrevita, Ryan Kertanis and Leonardi kept the Terrorcats out of the net.

Padrevita added an insurance open-net goal for the Wildcats with 18.6 seconds to salt the game away.

When the final horn sounded, the Suffield/Granby/Windsor Locks bench emptied around its goal as the players mobbed each other.

“It’s an unreal experience,” said Burgio. “We were more focused [this time around].”

Tri-Town head coach Paul Dowe tipped his hat to the Wildcats players.

“We played against a team that wanted to win tonight and we were a bunch of individuals trying to win a game,” Dowe said. “I’ll take 20 guys trying to win on any given night over a bunch of individuals. At the end of the day, that team wanted this win more than we wanted it. We beat them pretty handily at the beginning of the season, and for them to come back like that, it's a telltale sign of a team that's peaking at the right time."

It was the second consecutive big victory for the Wildcats (9-7), who defeated Avon/Farmington/Windsor 3-2 on Feb. 8 to qualify for the state tournament.

“It’s something we knew we could do,” Boorman said. “Tri-Town is an amazing team and this was a true test of how much we’ve improved. Now we’re ready to give everything we’ve got going forward into the tournament.”