You could barely hear anything inside the Centennial Civic Centre with roughly 1400 Lloydminster Public School Division students, but Kobe Walker made sure that the faithful fans would hear the goal horn on multiple occasions.
A hat-trick from the Lloydminster Bobcats leading scorer helped lead them past the visiting Sherwood Park Crusaders 4-1 Wednesday afternoon.
After a furious start from the Cats, they managed to get themselves on the board midway through the first period on the power-play.
With control in the offensive zone, Walker came off the wall with the puck, drove towards the slot and beat Crusader’s goalie Brandon Vogel high blocker side.
Walker’s goal would stand as the only one of the period, as the Bobcats led 1-0 after twenty minutes of play.
Coming out of the first intermission, it appeared the Crusaders had figured out a way to settle into the contest, and they began to take the play to Lloydminster.
The Cru went on to tie the game on a Ryan Cox goal coming with just under six minutes to play in the second.
With Sherwood Park outshooting Lloydminster 19-4 in the second period, and the frame about to expire, Walker came up clutch again.
Braydon Jenkins brought the puck into the Crusaders zone on a 2-on-1 with Walker, having less than five seconds remaining on the clock.
Jenkins out-waited a sprawling defender, sent a pass out front to Walker, and he made no mistake with 0.1 left in the period.
The goal gave the Cats all the momentum they needed in the third.
Less than four minutes into the final frame, Zach Kaiser buried his 20th goal of the season to put the Cats up 3-1, before Walker completed his hat-trick just under four minutes later.
From there, Lloydminster rolled to a 4-1 victory to pull within eight points of the Crusaders in the North Division standings.
Making his Bobcat’s debut, Bailey Brkin turned aside 34 of the 35 shots he faced to earn the win. Vogel went on to stop 24 of 28 shots for Sherwood Park.
The Crusaders went 0 for 4 with the man-advantage, while the Bobcats finished 1 for 2.
Next up for Lloydminster is a Friday night visit to Drayton Valley to take on the Thunder.