Sioux Lookout Bombers open season with a pair of wins

Tim Brody - Editor

The Sioux Lookout Bombers battled hard before a crowd of 786 people last Friday evening to earn a come from behind win against the visiting Thunder Bay North Stars at The Hangar (Sioux Lookout Memorial Arena) in what was both their season and home opener.
EJ Paddington opened the scoring for the North Stars near the end of the first period, giving his team a 1-0 lead.
Jonah Smith scored for the Bombers to tie the match just a few minutes past the halfway point of the second period off a Dayvan Bull assist.
Smith scored again for the Bombers just after the 15-minute mark of the third period to give his team the lead with assists going to Beau Bannerman and Alex Lucas.
Owen Cotter sealed the deal for the hometown team with an empty net goal at 19:58.
Goaltender Matthew Spencer-Dahl picked up the win in net.
Bombers Head Coach Carson Johnstone said after the match, it was great to come away with the win, “That’s huge but a lot of positive things from the guys tonight. We were down 1-0. They battled to stay in the game and then to get back in the game… real good character win and early on in the season that’s huge for the guys to learn from and build off of.”
Asked about getting his team back in the game, Johnstone shared, “I just told them to stop trying to force offense and stop trying to force everything into existence. When we’re patient and stay in the right spots and we use our minds, then we come up with pucks and we have the opportunities.  When we’re trying to force everything and skating all over the place, we get away from our systematic play. When we got back to that and started doing simple things again… once we did that, the game turned around… it’s tough, you get down in your own barn, home opener, you never know, some negativity could creep in, but they stayed positive and it was great… It was a great home opener. Great to see all the fans out again. It was awesome.”
Jonah Smith said following the game, “Just trying to get it done for the team, doing what I need to do. It feels really, really good to win as a team and just doing our best to get that W for crowd, for the town.
He added, “Big home opener, had kind of a lot of jitters going into the first period. We came out of it down one goal but we battled back hard. We played simple, hard hockey and that’s what we needed to do to get it done.”
Matthew Spencer-Dahl shared of getting the win, “It feels great. The boys battled the whole way and got the win for the fans, so a great day.”
“Just a little bit nervous, home opener, big crowd, the boys battled. I always had confidence in them, even when we went behind. I knew we had it in us to come back from that,” he added. 
The Bombers went on to defeat the North Stars again the following evening at The Hangar, this time by a score of 5-4.
Owen Riffel earned a hat-trick, scoring three of the Bomber’s goals. Alex Lucas and Blake Burke contributed to the scoring as well, each scoring a goal for the Bombers. 
Bombers goalie Matthew Ofukany picked up the win in net. 
Attendance for that game was 430 people.