First win!! Tornado wins 13-0 in Dunkerque
24 January 2010
Tornado travelled the long way to Dunkerque in the North of France to play the first game of the play-down round in the French 3rd Division. After a disappointing preliminary round, Tornado was keen to at least make a good impression in this relegation round and finish the season at the top of the standings.
And with an easy win in Dunkerque, the Luxembourg team got off to a good start. Tornado cruised to a 13-0 win, the first shutout of the season.
Georges Scheier, who went on to score 5 goals in total, opened the scoring on the first shift, at 00:31 as he took a pass from François Schons who made pressure on the forecheck and caught the Dunkerque goalie off guard to feed Georges for an easy empty-net 1-0. The mark was set in the first period and 7 more markers would follow in the first 20 minutes. Goalie Michel Welter made his season debut between the Tornado pipes and was rarely tested. He was perfect, even on the few breakaways that the Tornado defense allowed. Thierry Magalhaes scored the 2-0 at 3:17 on passes from Julien Dequidt and Robert Beran. Georges Scheier made it 3-0 at 5:56. Francois Schons tallied on a steal at 8:48, then Beran converted a tic-tac-toe play with Magalhaes at 9:33. The same Beran ended as perfect zone position play at 12:40 when the puck found the end of the net after the 3 forwards Beran, Dequidt and Magalhaes almost made fun of the Dunkerque defense. Georges Scheier punished Dunkerque on the powerplay at 16:33 and Beran completed the hattrick just before the end of the period to mark the 8-0 and give the Tornado squad a comfortable enough lead heading into the first break.
Coach Eriksson was very content with the score, but wanted his team to use this game to "practice" a better defensive zone coverage.
The second period started with a delay because of a Zamboni issue and the quality of the ice was, as a result, not the best. Tornado came out with a bit less of steam and it took over 7 minutes for Georges Scheier to score the first goal at 27:14 on a feed from Benny Welter. The game was now in cruising mode and there was little action in front of either net. Tornado seemed to be ok with the score and happy to post the first win of the season and Dunkerque was simply too weak to cause any damage on Michel Welter. Dunkerque started to get more physical and got into penalty trouble which resulted in an easy 5-on-3 powerplay goal by Dequidt at 38:53 on passes by captain Ronny Scheier and by Beran. That marked the end of the second period and only 20 minutes separated the team from the first win.
in the final period, things got a little bit hectic and Dunkerque, too weak to follow the rhythm imposed by the visiting team, tried to compensate with foul physical play. Schons scored the 11-0 19 seconds into the period on a pass by Welter and for the rest of the period, Dunkerque almost played the whole period shorthanded. Dequidt converted on the powerplay at 45:06 and Georges Scheier scored his 5th goal on a 5-on-3 powerplay at 46:35 for the final score of 13-0. Unfortunately, some Dunkerque players thought that trying to injure key Tornado players would change the result and it looked more like a manhunt on the ice than actual hockey. Young defenseman Kai Linster became the victim of the havoc when, in the final minute of the game, he got severely cut on the lip by a Dunkerque skate and had to be brought to a Dunkerque hospital to get over 20 stitches. It tainted a bit the celebrations on the drive home, but Tornado was still happy to start the relegation round with an imposing win and set the tone for a good second part of the season.