67’s beat Belleville after pipe burst delays game

After a few repairs, the Ottawa 67’s skated to a 3-2 victory over the Belleville Bulls on Friday night at TD Place arena.

The start of the game was delayed about an hour after a water pipe burst.

A 67’s spokesman reported that a pipe near the arena roof had burst, causing water to leak onto the ice.

After the leak was fixed, an OHL supervisor and game officials ruled that the game could be played safely.

The 67’s game on Sunday afternoon against Kingston and a skating show Saturday night will go ahead as scheduled, the club said.

It was the second time this season that the 67’s have experienced problems beyond their control at their home arena. In early November, the OHL club announced that the ice plant and cooling system at TD Place arena had malfunctioned. As a result, two home games had to be rescheduled.

In Friday’s game, the 67’s spotted the Bulls a 2-0 lead before rallying in front of a crowd of 2,464. David Tomasek opened the scoring at 13:26 of the first period and Niki Petti made it 2-0 just 32 seconds into the second, but Ottawa pulled even later in the period on backto-back power-play goals by Travis Konecny at 14:20 and Sam Studnicka at 16:58.

Connor Graham got the gamewinner for Ottawa at 15:12 of the third.

Liam Herbst got the win in goal, facing 24 shots, while Connor Hicks was tested 30 times at the other end of the ice.