On Saturday night, January 3rd, the TABC gym was at full capacity as the crowd anticipated a showdown of the two unbeaten teams in the Varsity hockey league. The HAFTR Hawks came in flying high at 10-0-1, while the 8-0 TABC Storm was coming off back-to-back wins against the MTA Lions.

The Storm came out flying from the drop of the puck, controlling play in its own zone for a majority of the 1st period. However, the Hawks stood tall, keeping the Storm off the board for the 1st period. In the beginning of the 2nd, however, the Storm began to see its hard work pay off. In the middle of the period, Ari Fuchs rushed the puck and gave a terrific cross-court pass to Yair Knoller, who buried the goal, giving the Storm a 1-0 lead. Later in the 2nd, after some hard work down low by Calev Minsky and Josh Deschino, Deschino found Alex Malech at the point, who ripped one past the goalie. Then with less than a minute in the 2nd, Daniel Levy made a beautiful pass to Ari Fuchs, who easily put it past the goalie to make the score 3-0 after two periods.

HAFTR came out strong in the 3rd and, off of a faceoff, put their first goal on the board to cut the lead to 2. But shortly thereafter, Aryeh Berman brought the puck around the net and lifted it over the goalie’s pad to put the lead back to 3. Later in the 3rd Yair Knoller was given too much time and sniped his second goal of the game from the slot. With less than two minutes left in the 3rd, Jonah Ganchrow found Sam Eisenstader in front of the net, who buried the goal making the score 6-1. Rami Levine put on another outstanding performance in net for the Storm.

By Jonah Ganchrow