Going into the semifinals for the men's Recreation Division at the Rendezvous Hockey tournament, the smart money would have been on Pelly Crossing's Selkirk Bears.

The quick and scrappy team had won every game they played coming into their match against the ORC Trees, most of them by a healthy margin.

But when the princes of Pelly showed up on Saturday night, their goalie didn't, so the top-seeded team played six on five against ORC for the first 10 minutes of the game.

ORC took advantage of the empty net, burying the first two of the seven goals they ultimately scored against the lone-goal scoring Bears.

That 7-1 win put ORC in the finals against none other than the Friends of Jesus.

The 14 disciples and the 15 Trees had met once before in the tournament, with the Friends of Jesus winning 10-3. ORC learned their lesson and were obviously determined not to go down again, apparently sacrificing a goat and a two-four of Canadian to a host of pagan gods before the game to make up for FOJ's holy advantage.

At 16:15, refs Dale Kulych and Jeremy Kovac laid down the law and put two men from each team into the penalty box.

The first pair went in for a high stick and a hook, then Jesus' captain Blaine (Bubba) Demchuk and ORC's David Douglas got into a good-natured elbowing match off the face off.

The refs didn't think it was funny and the two were sent to the box without any supper.

At 14:38, Friend of Jesus Wade Harrison nailed the first goal of the game to the score board, with help from Jerry Wald and Mike Snow.

ORC retaliated two and half minutes later with a quick play from goal-scorer Phil Mullin, backed by Brad Holm and Danny Johnson.

The Friend's of Jesus rushed it back, but after their first attempt was rejected by goalie Chad Warren with a nice bit of tending against the post, their next couple of shots went wide.

Jesus' homeboys got a power-play chance at 9:25 when ORC winger Terrance Tait went back to the box for a hooking penalty, but the ORC offence wasn't about to hand them an easy goal.

Winger Phil Mullin tried for a short-handed goal right off the face-off. He was turned away, and the puck got into the hands of the bless-ed boys, who scored at 8:02.

The goal went to Shawn McAskie, Tyler Murray and Guy Morgan picked up the assists.

Not to be discouraged, ORC fired back. With three minutes left in the first, and no fewer players in the crease, Douglas poked one past Goalie of Jesus Mike Hawkins.

Demchuk was none too impressed and made his case to the refs, but the boys in the bright striped jerseys let it go, and to add insult to injury sent FOJ's John Skilnik to the box for hooking.

It was a tie game going into the second and the fans were loving every second. Cries of 'Jesus died for our wins' rang through Takhini Arena, and the boys were ready to rock.

It took the Friends of Jesus less than half a minute to get one past Warren. It was Harrison's doing, assisted by Brent Cooper and Jerry Wald.

Twenty seconds later, ORC responded with a couple of bruising shots at Hawkins, the first one bounced off his pads but he held on to the second one, and offered up a prayer of thanks to the jock strap gods.

Then it was Harrison again for the hat trick. Snow's first shot trickled off Warren's pads, Cooper took a poke at it, and Harrison laid it down to sleep through a puck-sized hole in the ORC's keeper's pads.

FOJ's McAskie was in the box a minute later for interference, and the Trees pummeled Hawkins with power-play shots.

The veteran net minder stayed tight to his posts and turned away all comers.

ORC got another power-play chance midway through the second when Wald got two minutes for highsticking, but halfway through the penalty, ORC's Tait got his second two-minute wrist-slap of the day for tripping.

The four-on-four worked wonders for ORC's Jeremy Hookhana who brought the score to 4-3 with the help of Brad Holm.

Two minutes later, Douglas tied it up for the ORC Trees, firing off a one-timer and burying the puck behind Hawkins,nothing like a tie game to get the juices flowing and this was no exception.

Both goalies were working hard as the two teams' offences tried for the go-ahead.

With two minutes remaining, Friend of Jesus Mike Snow, assisted by Wald and Gord Peterson, thought he'd won the game with a clean shot from a few feet inside the ORC blue line.

ORC's Johnson responded with a mirror-image goal on Hawkins 30 seconds later and the game went to overtime.

The boys had 10 minutes running time to prove who was boss, and it looked like ORC might take it when Peterson got three long minutes for hooking.

ORC hammered Hawkins relentlessly, but to no avail, Peterson came back on the ice with no change in score.

As the time wound down, the ORC pack was hungry for the win.

A breakaway brought Hawkins way out of the net, he slowed down the play with some sprawling stick work so his defence could catch up, but left the net wide open.

It looked like ORC's game and half the arena was up on their feet, but it was not to be.

The Defenders of Jesus rallied to the net and kept it safe until Hawkins could find his way back through the Valley of Doubt.

On his return he made another spectacular save and the game went to a shoot out.

First and last was FOJ's Tyler Murray, who buried it behind Warren. The opposing goalies turned every other shooter away without a kill and the crown went to the Friends of Jesus.

Friend of Jesus Wade Harrison got the nod for MVP and Danny Johnson of the ORC Trees took home top scorer, but it was Mike Hawkins who got the backslaps and glory bows to go along with his prize for best goalie.