Another Saturday night and another victory for our own Seattle Thunderbirds! The boys brought it home on Saturday at the ShoWare Center when the game went into overtime, beating the Portland Winterhawks by the slim margin of 6 to 5. Fans raved about what an exciting game it was after the birds came back from not one or even two but three deficits during the game: two of them two-goal and one of them a single goal. This is the kind of game that creates new fans from first-time spectators. Fans are also excited that the Birds are beating the Hawks five games to three in the season series. And after this game, the Birds are now at 30-22-3-0, putting them only five points behind the Everett Silvertips for the first place spot once again.

The Birds celebrated Scott Eansor’s overtime goal, which sealed the game for Seattle with only a single second left of play, but it was a team effort the entire night through. Fans are speculating that the boys are finally finding their footing and working together to really make it happen on the ice after they experienced so many changes in the middle of the season.  The Hawks started off strong, scoring the first two goals of the evening, with Evan Weinger scoring the first goal. Assists were made by Rodrigo Abols and Jack Dougherty. The second was scored by Abols, with an assist from Dominic Turgeon. But Seattle outshot Portland 15-10 and proved that their spirit in the game was more than just talk.

Ryan Gropp made the first goal of the second period, making it his 26^th of the season. Mathew Barzal and Jarret Tyszka had the assists on the goal. Alexander True tied the game up with assists from Barzal and Keegan Kolesar, but then Portland shot out ahead again when Keoni Texeira scored, followed by a goal made by Alex Overhardt. During the third period, the Birds took back their tie when Donovan Neuls made his 10^th goal of the season with an assist from Nolan Volcan and Jerret Smith scored a goal. Then, Portland took the lead back when Alex Schoenborn scored a goal, assisted by Jones—but then the Birds tied it up again when Ryan Gropp scored a power play assisted by Barzal and Ethan Bear. Then Eansor made the winning goal and the rest is history! This was definitely a game to see in person.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia