Bill Vilona

bvilona@pnj.com

The Pensacola Ice Flyers created a fairytale ending to win another championship.

And it happened in the most amazing way possible.

Josh Cousineau flicked a backhand shot a split-second before regulation play ended, giving the Ice Flyers a dramatic 5-4 victory Thursday night against the Peoria Rivermen to sweep the SPHL President’s Cup Finals at the Pensacola Bay Center.

“That was definitely awesome. That was the best,” said Cousineau, the team’s newly-minted hero. “We just got a lucky bounce at the end. My teammates threw it on the net and I just buried it.”

Ice Flyers, Banfield, Pawlick named to All-SPHL Team

The goal sealed a third President’s Cup title for Pensacola in the past four years.

“That was crazy,” said Ice Flyers coach Rod Aldoff. “I mean what do you say? That’s not the way we drew it up. I wish it would have been a little easier on the heart.”

As you might imagine, euphoria ignited on the ice and sent reverberations through a crowd of 4,891, who screamed, danced and hugged for minutes. They watched the best of the Ice Flyers championships and the greatest moment in hockey’s 20th anniversary season in this area.

It was hockey’s version of a buzzer-beater for the ages.



The goal followed an equally dramatic emotion swing.“You can’t make that script up,” said Ice Flyers team captain Adam Pawlick, who has been part of the past two Ice Flyers championships. “Unbelievable.”

The Rivermen were whistled for a double penalty with 2:37 left that gave the Ice Flyers a 5-on-3 advantage. But the Ice Flyers could not get a clear shot or rebound in traffic on the power play.

The game seemed destined for overtime. And then it wasn’t. Thanks to Cousineau.

“With eight seconds left I thought we might have one more chance,” said Cousineau, acquired by the Ice Flyers early this season from the Knoxville Ice Bears, where he was part of their SPHL title season last year. “The puck went to the net and it was whatever I could do to get my stick on the ice.”

He then added, jokingly, “Hey, I tried to keep the fans on their feet.”

STORY CONTINUES BELOW GALLERIES

What then ensued was a combination of jubilation and retaliation. While the Ice Flyers celebrated, Peoria fumed. Three Rivermen players, star defenseman Dave Pszenyczny, leading scorer Adam Stuart and defenseman Brandon Greenside, who was named the league's defenseman of the year, all went after the officials.

They were assessed post-game ejections for abuse of officials and with SPHL commissioner Jim Combs at the game, there may be more consequences.

Rivermen coach Jean-Guy Trudel, who later changed his tone, initially disagreed with the goal counting. He told the Peoria Journal Star, "It's like a bad dream. The green light went on first, the clock said. (all zeros) and then the red light came on and they counted and skated away. It didn't appear to be a goal."

But after Trudel looked at the slow-motion replays, he then realized the two referees who made the call in real time, Sean Fernandez and Lucas Martin, made the right call. The puck got past sliding Peoria goaltender David Jacobson, who made several big saves in the game, then crossed the red line in frame-by-frame slow motion an eye blink before time expired.

It could not have been closer.

"We want to offer congratulations to Pensacola, they are the champions and they had a terrific team, played hard in this series," Trudel said, speaking to the Peoria Journal Star. "We had a terrific team, too, and we deserved a better fate than this."

HIs team had put itself in dire straights by losing both games in Peoria to the Ice Flyers by identical 3-2 scores.

The final minutes of last night's game were part of the twists and turns in the series.

The Ice Flyers’ played the final period without the SPHL’s leading scorer, Corey Banfield. He was on the game-opening shift and had some bursts in the first period before he realized he wasn't able to play well enough. .

His injury was too much. Banfield didn’t get a point in the final series. The Rivermen focused on shutting down that top line.

“I just didn’t have anything,” said Banfield, who didn’t play in Sunday’s Game 2 win in Peoria. “I tried to go, but I wasn’t close to 100 percent.”

In sweeping the Rivermen, who won a league-record 39 games in the regular season, including a 14-game win streak, the Ice Flyers did it with superior depth.

Five different players scored Thursday night, including Joey Holka, who had a team-high five goals in the playoffs, including the game-winner in overtime of Game 1.

Game 3 see-sawed back and forth. Peoria scored first, less than seven minutes into the game. The Ice Flyers did not get their first shot on goal until more than 12 minutes into the first period.

But after Peoria's Connor Toomey turned a weird carom off the boards into a tap-in goal, the Ice Flyers answered with two goals less than a minute apart by Pawlick and Brandon Zurn. Pawlick's goal also came off a wild bounce.

Peoria’s Chris Wilson scored the only goal in the second period.

Holka gave the Ice Flyers a 3-2 lead less than 90 seconds into the final period. Then Peoria tied it with 11:09 remaining on a power play goal.

Drew Baker put the Ice Flyers back up on his power play goal 1:04 later. But Peoria’s Adam Stuart tied it just before the game hit the final 10 minutes.

From there, it was tense until Paul Rodrigues dug the puck from the corner, passed to Ryan Kesti, whose shot was followed by Cousineau’s heroics.

“I have only seen that happen one time in my career and it didn’t work out in our favor,” said Zurn, one of the top college players that the Ice Flyers added in March. “(Peoria) had all the momentum too. We just got pucks to the net.”

Zurn, an NCAA Division III All-American this season, who led that division in scoring at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minn., before signing with the Ice Flyers, was tied as the sixth leading scorer in the SPHL playoffs (3 goals, 3 assists) with teammate and fellow college star defenseman Anthony Calabrese from Plattsburgh (NY) State.

Those two players along with Zurn's college teammate Charlie Adams, were big for the Ice Flyers.

The second Cousineau's goal was ruled a game-winner, the Ice Flyers leaped in ecstasy onto the ice and the celebration lasted for more than 30 minutes.

In the playoffs, the Ice Flyers had the biggest attendance. Both Peoria and the Ice Flyers agreed to arrange a best-of-five championship series because of lengthy travel and arena availability issues.

“You have to beat a team three times which is incredibly hard to do,” said Pawlick. “My hat’s off to Peoria for putting up a great fight, but this one feels like the best right now in the moment.

“A lot of hard work went into this.”

And quite a party ensued.

SPHL President's Cup Finals

GAME 3

At Pensacola Bay Center

SCORING SUMMARY

Peoria -- 1--1--2---4

Pensacola -- 2--0--3---5

SHOTS ON GOAL

Peoria -- 4-9-10---23

Pensacola -- 7-15-12---34

POWER PLAY CHANCES -- Peoria 1-2, Pensacola 1-5.

SCORING

First Period

Peoria -- Connor Toomey (Walter Wintoneak), 12:41

Pensacola -- Adam Pawlick (Anthony Calabrese, Mike Krieg), 15:55

Pensacola -- Brandon Zurn (Paul Rodrigues, Joey Holka), 16:32

Second Period

Peoria -- Chris Wilson, (Christian Wiedauer), 1:51.

Third Period

Pensacola -- Joey Holka (Brandon Zurn), 1:19.

Peoria -- Mike Gurtler (power play goal), Dave Pszenyczny, Adam Stuart, 8:51

Pensacola -- Drew Baker (power play goal), Paul Rodrigues, Jeremy Gates, 9:47.

Peoria -- Adam Stuart (Benjamin Rubin), 10:17

Pensacola -- Josh Cousineau (Ryan Kesti, Paul Rodrigues) 19:59.