Adrenaline Edge Out Tongues In Shootout

On the road in Adelaide, the Bartercard Gold Coast Blue Tongues faced off against the Adelaide Adrenaline in a scorefest on July 19. CJ Anderson was in net for the Blue Tongues, while Olivier Martin was the Adrenaline's goaltender. The teams were evenly matched, with Anderson facing 29 shots and Martin facing 30. Gold Coast struck first, when Mike McRae scored, assisted by Cameron Trew and Mike Minieri just 2 and a half minutes into the first period. Adelaide's captain Greg Oddy, assisted by Josh Harding and Cameron Dion, evened up the score just 30 seconds later. Marco Bertossa, assisted by Jon Bale and Mike Minieri, gave the Blue Tongues the lead with 8 and a half minutes left in the first. Gold Coast forward Mark Smith, returning to the Blue Tongues uniform after a 2 and a half season absence, was penalised for tripping, and gave the Adrenaline their first powerplay of the game. Gold Coast's penalty kill teams tried to hold off the Adrenaline's offence but with only 13 seconds left on the kill, Cameron Dion capitalised on the man advantage, assisted by Greg Oddy and Josh Harding. Adelaide extended their lead to 3-2 when Dale Hall netted the puck past Anderson, again assisted by Greg Oddy and Josh Harding, and giving the Adrenaline a psychological advantage going into the second period.

It seemed that their advantage continued, when Adelaide's Dale Hall, unassisted, extended their lead even further to 4-2 after nearly 5 minutes of end to end hockey. The Gold Coast team didn't back down, and showed their ability to rise above adversity when Jon Bale took full advantage of the penalty on Adelaide's Cas Delsar only 10 seconds after Delsar entered the penalty box, assisted by imports Dallas Costanzo and Mike McRae. The trio combined again to even up the teams on Adrenaline player Dave Huxley's penalty, when Dallas Costanzo got the biscuit past Martin, off a pass from Jon Bale and Mike McRae. In the dying seconds of the period, Mike Minieri gave the Blue Tongues the lead going into the third period 5-4, assisted by Dallas Costanzo and Don Burke.

The Blue Tongues were on a high when they started the third period, and it took just 6 seconds for Mike McRae to sink a pass from Dallas Costanzo past Olivier Martin to extend Gold Coast's lead to 6-4. Two minutes later Sami Mantere scored for Adelaide, assisted by Greg Oddy and Sean Greer. Once again the battle between these two teams was on with end to end hockey. James Keane evened up the scores at 6 all when he was assisted by Greg Oddy and Wehebe Darge with just under 7 minutes left in the third period. A mere 10 seconds later the entire game changed when Wehebe Darge, assisted by James Keane and Cass Delsar gave the Adrenaline the lead, leaving the Blue Tongues supporters following on the website's Twitter feed, biting their nails. Just 53 seconds were left in the game when the Blue Tongues' prayers were answered. The team celebrated collectively when Mike McRae sank the pass from Dallas Costanzo and Ross Howell to tie up the game.

As the game ended in a tie, both teams play a sudden death shootout to decide the winner. Adelaide was the sole scorer of the shootout, with Adam Gebara, Dallas Costanzo, and Mike McRae's shots on goal all being turned away by Olivier Martin to give Adelaide a hard fought 8-7 victory.