Eagles Country Raises $115,237 for Five-Year-Old Jayce Vogel in Loss to Heat
Mar 19, 2022
LOVELAND, CO. – The Colorado Eagles annual “Pot of Gold” night shattered previous records, as Eagles fans, sponsors and the team raised $115,237 for five-year-old Jayce Vogel of Timnath. Vogel was diagnosed with stage four metastatic neuroblastoma when he was only six-months old and has since endured costly and painful immunotherapy and chemotherapy treatments in the years that have followed. The fundraiser highlighted an evening that saw the Eagles upended by the visiting Stockton Heat, 10-3.
Stockton would stake an early lead when defenseman Kevin Gravel took advantage of traffic in front of the net when he buried a wrister from the left-wing boards to put the Heat on top, 1-0 just 1:21 into the contest.
Colorado would strike back just 1:13 later when forward Jean-Luc Foudy capped off a 2-on-1 rush, beating Stockton goalie Dustin Wolf to tie the game at 1-1.
The Heat would swing the momentum back less than 90 seconds after the Foudy tally when forward Byron Froese flushed home a rebound in the slot to give Stockton a 2-1 edge at the 3:58 mark of the first period.
The Eagles would trim the deficit late in the period when defenseman Jordan Gross scored from the point to cut the Heat’s advantage to 3-2 with only 1:33 left in the opening 20 minutes of play.
Still trailing 3-2 as the puck dropped on the second period, Colorado would see an early power-play backfire when a shorthanded, 2-on-1 rush would set up forward Jakob Pelletier to tap a centering pass past Eagles goalie Justus Annunen to stretch Stockton’s lead to 4-2 at the 51-second mark.
A Colorado turnover at center ice would see Heat forward Connor Zary slice through the left-wing circle before snapping a wrister into the back of the net to give the Heat a 5-2 advantage at the 3:04 mark of the second stanza. The goal would also signal the end of the night for Annunen, as he would give way to Hunter Miska in net for the duration.
Stockton would earn its first power play of the contest midway through the period, and it would pay off, as Phillips swept home a loose puck in the crease to push the Heat’s lead to 6-2 with 10:37 still to play in the middle frame.
The spiral would continue in the third period, as Pelletier and Phillips would each earn their second goals of the night, while forward Martin Pospisil and Justin Kirkland also lit the lamp. A power-play goal for Gross with 1:12 remaining in regulation would round out the scoring, as the Eagles fell by a final score of 10-3.
Colorado was outshot in the contest 38-31, as the Eagles finished 1-for-5 on the power play and 1-for-2 on the penalty kill. Annunen ended the evening with 13 saves on 18 shots while Miska stopped 15 of the 20 shots he faced.
The Eagles will be back in action when they travel to take on the Bakersfield Condors on Wednesday, March 23rd at 7:30 pm MT at Rabobank Arena in Bakersfield, California. Tickets for all regular-season games are on sale now and start at just $19. You can find more information on ticket packages, theme tickets, and promotional nights, by visiting ColoradoEagles.com or by calling the ticket department at (970) 686-7468.
