Great Tornado comeback against Valenciennes, tie 4-4
Photo by Mike Sinner
01 December 2012
On December 1st in their own building, the Tornado Luxembourg played Valenciennes, where none of the teams could score a victory as the game ended 4-4.
The visiting team was stronger than their opponent in the first period. It was Anthony Wagret who opened the scoring for the guests at 1:51 on a feed from Benjamin Lejeune. At 8:03, it was Vincent Grenier who put the puck in the net again for the guests on a feed from Alexandre Capet. Another goal came at 12:39, when Antoine Janot scored for the guests on a pass by Louis Camurat. At the end of the first, the score was 0-3, giving the visiting team the lead. "For some reason the first period was hard for us. We were not ready for the game. And that wasn't the first time this season. I'm a bit suprised because I think we had good training sessions during the week and the team seemed to be ready for the game in the warm up.", said Teemu Hinkula of the Tornado Luxembourg.
Even though the home team was the stronger one in the second period, the visiting team didn't give up on the lead. The guests continued their run, as Anthony Wagret scored the 0-4 on a feed from Romain Sauvage. Bob Schneider scored at 27:37 to make it 1-4 on a feed from Gilles Biver. The hosts continued their run, as Colm Cannon scored the 2-4. At the end of the second, the score was 2-4.
The home team didn't surrender though and came back strong in the last period. Another goal came at 44:29, when Bob Schneider scored for the hosts. Sacha Backes tied it 4-4 at 50:14 on a pass by Christophe Thiry. The score was 4-4 at the end of the final period.
"Luckily we showed good fighting spirit tonight in the last two periods. It's sad we couldn't give our audience the win they would have earned. It's also nice to see that our youngsters are taking bigger roles in the team. Last week Sascha (Backes) was on fire, on Monday Philippe (Bechtold) scored the big goal and today it was Bob's turn to rule the ice.", said Teemu Hinkula. Bob Schneider added: "We just didn't manage to get in the game, until we scored our first goal, and from that moment on we finally started fighting and playing as a team. We just put in all the effort we could to get back in the game. I think we can be happy with the one point we take from this game".
The highest scorers were Bob Schneider, Anthony Wagret and Sacha Backes with 2 points each. Bob Schneider set a personal season-high with his 2-point game. For the Tornado Luxembourg, tonight's game was not a reflection of their usual offensive and defensive standard. The facts that their 4 points against are above this season's average of 3.2 and the 4 points scored are below the average 5.3 points, show that they were simply not playing their game. In all 5 matchups between these two teams, both won 2 times, which creates a regular season split. The Tornado Luxembourg will play their next game on December 6th against the IHC Beaufort 2, while Valenciennes play against Dijon on November 15th.
Photos will follow soon!