President's Update - November 16th, 2015

The 50^th season of the Highway Hockey League began on Friday evening on two fronts. In Lumsden, the Monarch’s Carter Selinger scored just 25 seconds into the first period and the Monarchs would never trail in this game on their way to a 7-4 victory over the Strasbourg Maroons.  Jared Adams and Austin Preete would score on the power play and Kyle Johnson would score unassisted late in the period to give the Monarchs a 4-0 lead before Mitch McNish would score with twenty seconds left in the period to make it 4-1 Lumsden going into the second period. The Maroons would bounce back in the second with a power play goal from Tanner Exner and a second goal from McNish to get within one. Kyle Johnson would notch his second goal of the evening to put the Monarchs back up by two before Tyson Orban would make it a one goal game with a goal late in the period to make it 5-4 for Lumsden. The Monarchs would get goals from Jared Adams with his second of the evening and Ward Szucki to make the final score 7-4. Johnson would end up with a five point night for the Monarchs. Will Hood would pick up the win in net for the Monarchs stopping 14 shots and his former teammate in Junior B, Jeremy Ellis, took the loss for the Maroons stopping 42 of 49 shots fired his way. Lumsden had six minor penalties and Strasbourg had five. In Wynyard, The Raymore Rockets would overcome a 2-1 deficit in the second period and score four unanswered goals for a 5-2 victory over 2015 league finalists Wynyard Monarchs. Davis Brown scored the only goal in the first period to give the Rockets a 1-0 lead going into the second period. Riley Storzuk and Brett Leffler scored in the second period to give the Monarchs a 2-1 lead midway through the frame. Todd MacMurchy scored and then Tyrell Shulko scored on the power play with the eventual winning goal to give the Rockets a 3-2 lead going into the third period. Davis Brown would score his second goal of the game and Chad Filteau would score to make the final score 5-2 for Raymore. Cody Mapes finished the evening with three assists. Travis Bosch picked up the win for the Rockets in net and Kevin Orthner was in net for the Monarchs. The Rockets had four minor penalties and the Monarchs had three.

On Saturday evening, the defending Schultz Cup winners Bethune Bulldogs opened up the season with a 7-3 victory over the hometown Avonlea Arrows. Mitch Boucher scored early in the game to give the Bulldogs a 1-0 lead going into the second period. Josh Jelinski would tie game up for the Arrows early in the second period. Jake Ulmer would score for the Bulldogs to put them back in the lead but Kyle Oleniuk would quickly tie the game for the Arrows. Kyle Ross would score on the power play late in the period to restore the lead for Bethune and Dustin MacAngus would score in the last minute and the Bulldogs had their largest lead of the evening 4-2 going into the final period. Mitch Boucher would score early in the third period and Kyle Ross would score his second goal of the evening before Dayton Picard would score Avonlea’s third goal of the evening. Paul Albers scored late in the period to make the final score 7-3 for Bethune. Mitch Boucher would finish the evening with five points (2-3). Ryan Seibel picked up the win in net for the Bulldogs and Dean Brother was in net for the Arrows. The Arrows had four minor penalties and a misconduct and the Bulldogs had four minor penalties and two misconducts. In Strasbourg, The Wynyard Monarchs made it three wins for the away teams this weekend with a 5-3 victory over the Strasbourg Maroons on Saturday evening. Brett Leffler, Chad Mazurak and Cody Straker scored in the first period to give the Monarchs a 3-0 lead going into the second period. As with the evening before, The Maroons stormed back in the second with Tanner Exner scoring twice and a goal from Mitch McNish to tie the game at three going into the third period. In the third period Dale Spelchen and Brodie Melnychuk scored for the Monarchs to make the final 5-3 for Wynyard. Kevin Orthner stopped 25 of 28 shots fired his way to record the win for the Monarchs. Tyler Kifferling stopped 36 of 41 shots for the Maroons.

This Friday the Cupar Canucks open the season at home against the Lumsden Monarchs. Also on Friday evening Strasbourg will be in Raymore and Bethune will be in Wynyard to play the Monarchs at 8:30 p.m. On Saturday evening Raymore will be in Bethune for the Bulldog’s home opener, Avonlea is in Strasbourg and the southern Monarchs play the northern Monarchs in Wynyard.

Pocket schedules will be in your community this week. We are distributing 50^th anniversary stickers for helmets and there are a few extra and if you would like one let me know. You can follow us on Twitter http://twitter.com/HighwayHockey All of our tweets, which include updates from all games, appear on our front page just under the Upcoming Games column if you just want to follow on the website. You can also follow my account Pensky File http://twitter.com/GeraldT  

Thank you for coming back to another season of senior hockey and please get out to a game near you.

Gerry Tomkins

President - HHL