What a way to bid farewell to the franchise lightning rod, a consummate team player who not only scored goals but prevented them throughout his tremendous career.
With their biggest offensive output of the year and a clean sheet to boot, Forge FC gave a full-team impersonation of their retiring captain, Kyle Bekker, on Thanksgiving Monday afternoon, who will miss the rest of his eighth and final Hamilton season because of a knee injury.
Bekker, team skipper in every way since Day 1, was honoured before the game with a touching scoreboard tribute. And the Hammers translated that from video into real time with a 5-0 drubbing of 407 Derby Rivals Inter Toronto, who needed to play desperately to give their minuscule playoff hopes some life but were robbed of oxygen by Forge’s smothering presence, on all three tiers of the field.
“Kyle has been an incredible inspiration for me,” said Forge keeper Dino Bontis, who made a thoughtful pun-h stop early and went on to earn his second straight shutout. “I have photos with him at TFC when I was seven years old.”
It was the 22-year-old’s second successive blank sheet for his hometown side after a 3-0 victory at Pacific last week. He’s had his longest consecutive stint as a pro with four straight starts as Dmitry Bertaud has been on call to the Democratic Republic of Congo during the international break, but will now return to the club.
“It feels incredible,” Bontis, the former Western Mustang, said of his clean sheet. “I really have to credit all my defenders; they put so much work in, and they make it a lot easier than you’d think back there.
“I’ve been pleased. Obviously, there were some issues a couple of games ago in Halifax, but overall, I feel comfortable and confident, and the guys have made me feel that way. I’ve learned so much this year from Dmitry. He’s not the biggest goaltender—like myself—and looking at him, I can see the kind of keeper I can be in a few years. He’s calm on the ball and an incredible shot-stopper. I’ve made many steps this year, and nobody can really see it in games, but I can feel it in my head while playing.”
Forge started on the front foot, scoring early and often, topping their previous season’s high of four goals, which they’ve done twice times and they’ve scored three six times including the two games before this one.
With the victory, Hamilton moved temporarily into first place with arch-rival Cavalry playing at HFX Wanderers later in the day. After Halifax rallied for a 2-2 draw, it left the Cavs and Hammers tied for first with 54 points each and two games to play. Because Calgary has the season’s tiebreaker, Forge must gain at least one more point than Cavalry in the final two games.
Forge scored twice in the opening 10 minutes, with the first appropriately coming off the foot of Noah Jensen, who steps into Bekker’s midfield role. He rifled in a precise curling shot on a direct kick from just outside the box. Then Nana Ampomah scored on a ball chested perfectly back to him by Maxime Bourgeois, whose influence on the front line has been growing steadily week by week.
Ampomah hurt his knee on the play and had to be removed, forcing Peter Reynders—who was running the bench with Bobby Smyrniotis serving a one-game suspension—to go to substitutions far earlier than he’d anticipated. Ben Paton came in and soon forced a great save by Toronto keeper Kai Antonio Campos.
Defender Antoine Batisse, who was a threat in the offensive box all afternoon, made it 3-0 in the 30th minute with Dan Nimick creating distractions among the Toronto rearguard.
Forge sealed it 56 seconds after the intermission as Bourgeois fed a pass-through to Lucas Cavallini, who ate up a defender and the 30-year-old left-back and defender Marko Jevremović pounced on the open ball for a firm strike home. And Paton worked a great one-two with Ismael Oketokoun for the fifth goal in the 89th minute.
“The message, like every game, was to start quickly,” Bontis said. “We usually have some chances to start, and it turned out well for us.”
Bourgeois, who owned the right side of the pitch, works brazenly well along the end line trying to get the ball into dangerous spots in the middle of the box.
“Maxime, like all the other guys, is doing a great job,” said Forge assistant head coach George Kyriazis. “He knows he has speed; he also knew that it was part of the plan that there was going to be a lot of space in behind. Sometimes the final pass works better than others, but he knows he can be a dangerous player. Every time he has the opportunity to go one v. one he’s going to take it. He’s done a great job for us but, again, lately all the guys up top are doing a good job.”
That’s 11 goals now in the last three games, and while the Forge has had some draws they were wishing had become three-point wins, they have not lost in nearly two months since, down to 10 men for the final hour, they were edged 2-1 in Calgary in mid-August.
If there is any criticism, it’s that as good as the defenders are, occasionally they’ve been a bit cavalier in clearing balls that can then turn into dangerous second attempts. But on Monday they allowed only one shot at net in the first half while pressing for a dozen of their own.
Forge has two league games left, Saturday in Ottawa and the following week in Pacific as they try to nail down the CPL Shield as first-place finishers. In between their two league games, they have the all-important single-game final of the TELUS Canadian Men’s Championship a week Wednesday against CF Montréal in Montréal.
“The most important part late in the season, especially when you’re trailing in points, is to stick to the plan,” Kyriazi said. “Sometimes you score early in the game, two or three goals, and you can relax and become a little more tricky or casual.”
Happened to them in Halifax with the Wanderers’ late comeback for a draw in stoppage time, and clearly the Forge has learned from that harsh lesson.