Snakes Close Gap On Gorillas:

This is in todays Morning Star Newspaper:

Snakes close gap on Gorillas

By Graeme Corbett - Vernon Morning Star
Published: January 25, 2009

There are bounces, and then there are hockey-god bounces. Cameron Brodie’s first goal as a Vernon Viper was the latter as he helped erase a 2-0 deficit to stun the host Salmon Arm SilverBacks 4-2 before a packed house (1,782 fans) Friday night at the Sunwave Centre.
Trailing 2-0 after a tight-checking first period, Brodie fired a seemingly harmless dump in to the SilverBacks' zone, only to have it take an awkward bounce off the end boards, catch netminder Bryan Gillis on the back of the leg, and drop neatly into the net. First-star netminder Andrew Hammond, who made 26 saves for his 20th win, earned the assist.
When asked if he planned it that way, Brodie, a White Rock product, chuckled: “I wish.”
Harnessing the momentum, the Snakes (33-11-1-3) added three more unanswered goals to ice the game, pulling within three points of the B.C. Hockey League leading Backs (35-11-1-2). Vernon hosted the Penticton Vees (27-14-0-6) Saturday night at Wesbild Centre.
"Even though we were down 2-0, I thought we had a good first period," said Vipers' head coach Mark Ferner. "We stuck to our game plan, we got a break and that gave us a little more enthusiasm... and we just kept going from there."
Both teams were on the defensive early, with the Vipers establishing more of a physical presence, out-hitting the Gorillas all night. Brodie set the tone with a solid open-ice hit on former teammate Brent Vandenberg in the first shift.
“We knew how big of a game it was, and we didn’t want to wait until 10 minutes in to realize it was going to be tough,” said Brodie. “It was definitely a character win – it took all 20 guys to get us back into it.”
The Backs struck first as Vandenberg came in on the rush and slipped a short pass to Justin Cseter in the middle, who buried his 11th goal, going high blocker side on Hammond at 4:12.
The Vipers, who have won three straight, nearly answered back a minute later as Connor Jones was all alone in front of Gillis (20 saves), but lost the handle before he could slip the puck past the Lantz, N.S. product.
Salmon Arm bagged their second while on the powerplay as Ashford McMaster fired a low shot, forcing Hammond to kick out a rebound. Mark Zengerle (29th goal) was at the side of the net to fire the rebound into the open net.
The Vipers' Sahir Gill had a couple of great scoring chances late in the first frame. First, he tipped a Kyle Bigos point shot just wide of the net. He then looked to bury one top shelf from the side of the net, but was robbed by Gillis coming cross-crease to flash the glove.
At the other end, Hammond denied the SilverBacks twice on a pair of clear breakwaways – the first on Zac Rasmussen, the second on Vandenberg after he caught d-man Mike Leidl flatfooted.
"I thought that game showed a lot of character on our side," said Hammond, a White Rock product. "It was just a really good example of guys paying the price. There were a lot of shot blocks that I might not have seen. In the last few games we kind of got away from that, but they really paid the price tonight.
"Anytime you play Salmon Arm, you up your game. Everyone does. Everyone takes pride in these games, and some of the guys who weren't here before, they didn't really know what to expect, but they quickly learn what these games mean to us."
Added SilverBacks' head coach Rylan Ferster: "It was a typical tight-checking game with a couple unfortunate bounces for us, but give some credit to them. They were down 2-0, and they kept working hard.
"We had a couple of our veteran defencemen not show up and not play well, and they came out of here with a well-deserved victory. We didn't find a way to get that third goal."
Mike Collins (18th) kept the Vipers rolling at 7:59 of the third period when he banged in a loose puck from the side of the net on a goalmouth scramble, assisted by Adam Thompson and Braden Pimm.
Jones (15th) earned the winner midway through the third as he deflected Chris Crowell's shot past Gillis.
"We dug ourselves into a bit of a hole early, but our guys didn't get frustrated, they we stuck with it," said Ferner. "All lot of time, it's how your guys react to certain situations, and our guys reacted in a positive way.
"The message was, between the second and third period, that we're in a good spot here and if it takes us until the last shift of the game to win this hockey game, we will."
Late in the game, Collins (19th) showed great awareness to carry the puck over centre before tossing it at the empty net to ice the game with 20 seconds remaining.
"We had a 2-0 lead and we blew it," said the Backs' Keenan Desmet. "We knew it was going to be a battle, and we should have won it in our home barn."
The Vipers visit the Trail Smoke Eaters (24-20-2-2)Friday night at Cominco Arena.