Colmar Titans beat Tornados in the final minutes, 6-4


19 December 2015

On December 19th, the Tornados travelled to Colmar for a matchup between the 6th-ranked guest and the 3rd-ranked host. In a very exciting game, the home team outplayed the Tornados in the final minutes of the game and secured a 6-4 victory.



Tornado started the game well and more or less dominated the first period. At time 13.00 Vesa Hirvonen scored the first goal after a nice lateral pass from Colm Cannon. At the end of the period Teemu Hinkula took a stupid offensive zone penalty and Colmar got their change to tie the game. As so many times before Colmar managed to take the benefit of the powerplay and they scored 1-1 two and half minutes before the end of the period. That wasn't all, only 13 seconds later there was 2-1 on the scoreboard as Colmar scored almost straight from the face off.



During the first break Tornado decided to continue fighting as they had had lot of chances in the first period. At time 33.12. Tornado's hard work was rewarded when team's youngster Raoul Kramer used his wrist shot and scored his first goal in senior team. Kramer truly earns extra credits: despite he's young age, Kramer has played like an experienced player in last two games. Tornado got its momentum and managed to use it when Yannick Harmi scored the 3-2 goal only 27 seconds later. Unluckily this momentum didn't last long as Colmar tied the game again only one minute later. This time Tornados' decided to finish the period with good spirit and at time 37.53 it was rewarded when other youngster Jiri Kraval scored 4-3 for Tornado.



The last period was an ugly one however. With 7 minutes left in the game, Colmar tied the game on a deflection, and only shortly after, with 4 minutes remaining, they even got the lead. The Tornados tried playing with 6 men on the ice for the last two minutes, but the reward didn't come, and Colmar managed to seal the deal by making it 4-6 on an empty net. That means 3 points stayed in Colmar. Tornado worked hard the whole game but unfortunately this time it wasn't enough to steal the points from the home team.



In the audience there was two scouts from Finland. After the game they commented that they are surprised of the lack of physical game in the league. Especially they were wondering how the referees give penalties even from normal shoulder to shoulder body checks which should be the normal part of the game called ice hockey. In their opinion giving more space for that part of the game the level of the hockey could take next step in France.



Maxim Mathieu and Benjamin Leconte were the best scorers of the game with 4 points each. Best scorer of Tornado was again Colm Cannon with 3 assist. The best player of Tornado, chosen by players, was the goalie Gilles Mangen who gave the team the chance to win with numerous spectacular saves. Part of the reason why the Tornado Luxembourg lost the game is that even though today's 6 points against are below this season's average of 6.38, the 4 points scored in this game are below the 4.63 season average. Out of these two teams' last 8 encounters, Colmar Titans won 87.5% of the games (7 out of 8). Next on the schedule for the Tornado Luxembourg is the home game against Dijon II on January 9th. See you there!



The whole Tornado family wants to wish MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR for all fans!!!