JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Friday was Cancer Awareness Night for the Jacksonville Icemen, who faced the Trois-Rivières Lions in the first of back-to-back games. Trois-Rivières took a 3-2 victory after a controversial call by the referees who overturned a Jacksonville goal with 45 seconds left in the game.
Trois-Rivières jumped off to a quick 2-0 lead within the game’s first five minutes on goals from Logan Nijhoff and captain Morgan Adams-Moisan. Chase Lang put Jacksonville on the board at just past the halfway point of the first period to make it 2-1. In the second period, Hakon Nilsen, who was playing in his first game for Jacksonville, scored his first-ever ECHL goal seconds after the power play had expired. The tie game was short-lived as 32 seconds later the Lions’ Vincent Sévigny scored.
In a closely fought battle during the third period, Jacksonville elected to pull their goaltender, Justen Close, in the game’s closing minutes for the extra attacker. Jacksonville’s Garret Van Wyhe scored with 42 seconds left on the clock to tie the game, or so he thought. The referees reviewed the goal on the tablet and ruled it a no-goal for goaltender interference. Multiple video replays on the jumbotron showed it should have been a good goal, as there seemed to be no goaltender interference on the play. A livid Jacksonville coaching staff, Icemen players, and the 8000+ fans in attendance were all dumbfounded by the call. The two teams face each other again on Saturday, for Pucks and Paws Night.
Check out this photo gallery from Inside The Rink’s Andrew Fielder, for highlights from the game.
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