HATFIELD – Early on in the high school hockey season teams are usually trying to hit their stride. November is a time to settle into things, work on getting their feet back under them before Flyers Cup time early the next year.

However Thursday night’s matchup between North Penn and William Tennent was anything but a game for the teams to get back into the swing of things.

Both teams came out hungry for a win, and the atmosphere at Hatfield Ice arena was that of a win-or-go-home elimination game.

In a chippy, hotly contested game, the two teams abused each other en route to a 3-3 draw at the end of regulation.

North Penn was able to jump out to an early lead in the first, however as would become the tenor of the night, Tennent came storming back, netting a power play goal with 9:28 mark in the first period.

Senior Derek Heckler would put an end to the deadlock at the 13:16 mark,  scoring to put the Knights up 2-1.

The second period is when things turned ugly. Two game misconducts went in tandem with a slew of other misconducts and minor penalties. It seemed as if every whistle was accompanied by a rather unhappy rink rat being escorted to the sin bin.

“We had to keep working hard and not them get in our heads,” said senior Derek Heckler. “We just had to push through it and focus on the game.”

In between this mele both teams lit the lamp once, Spencer Silver two minutes in, followed by a Panther penalty shot that found its way past North Penn netminder Jake Snyder. Snyder had many key saves in the bout and was a vital contributor for the Knights.

In a third period teeming with the same amount of controversy as the one before it, the Panthers were able to tie the game up at three apiece early on.

The score stayed gridlocked until with 51.9 seconds remaining in regulation a Tennent shot hit iron and bounced out. The officials had trouble deciding whether or not it hit the outside pipe or the inside pipe, and after much discussion disallowed the goal and the game would end a stalemate, three a piece.

“I liked the way we worked on the power play,” Heckler said of his team’s performance. “But we gotta work on the defensive zone. It needs some work.”

North Penn is back on the ice to square off against the Falcons of Pennsbury on December 3rd.