President's Update - January 23rd, 2017

Provincials begin this week…The Raymore Rockets will host the Central Butte Flyers on Wednesday. This is a two game total point series in Provincial ‘C’. Game two of this series will be on Sunday in Central Butte at 3:00 p.m. The winner of this series will play the Drake Canucks of the Long Lake Hockey League. The Bethune Bulldogs play this Saturday evening in game one of a best of three series against the Davidson Cyclones in Bethune at 8:00 p.m.. The winner of this series plays the winner of the Milestone Flyers (QVHL) and the Bienfait Coalers (Big Six HL) in February. The Avonlea Arrows will be in Balgonie on Friday, February 3rd to play the Balgonie Bisons (QVHL) in Provincial ‘A’ action. Game two of this best of three series is in Avonlea on Saturday, February 11th. The Lumsden Monarchs begin their Provincial ‘A’ series in Leroy against the Braves (LLHL) on Saturday, February 4th at 3:00 p.m. Game two of this series will be in Lumsden on Saturday, February 11th at 7:00 p.m. The winner of this series plays the winner of the Avonlea/Balgonie series. The Cupar Canucks begin their Provincial ‘D’ two game total point series on Saturday, February 4th in Cupar against the Bredenbury Cougars (Triangle Hockey League). Game two of this series is Saturday,February 11th. The Wynyard Monarchs are in Provincial ‘B’ and have a bye into second round. The Strasbourg Maroons are not in provincials but I understand that three of their players are playing with Lumsden and some players are playing with Balgonie.

Bethune Bulldogs clinch first place….The Bethune Bulldogs defeated the Avonlea Arrows 11-0 last Wednesday evening and clinched first place in the HHL. They now have a bye into the semi-finals. Lucas Ulmer scored three times while Drew George and Jacob Ulmer each scored twice to lead the Bulldogs. Other goals came from Carson Sinclair, Kyle Ulmer, Mike Reich and Mitch Bouche. Ryan Holfeld picked up the shut out win in net for the Bulldogs. The Bulldogs also defeated the Wynyard Monarchs 10-5 on Friday evening and Avonlea 5-2 on Sunday. In Wynyard the Bulldogs got scoring from Drew George with the hat trick, including a power play goal. Kyle Ross and Mike Reich each scored twice and the balance of the scoring came from Jacob Ulmer, Derek Fuchs and Lucas Ulmer. Eric Popadynec scored twice for the Monarchs. Carter Buffalo, Donovan Hall and Kyle Kinequon also scored for Wynyard. Ryan Seibel picked up the win in net for the Bulldogs and Adam Jordan was in net for the Monarchs. Each team had two minor penalties. Also on Friday evening the Cupar Canucks and Raymore Rockets were tied after each period and in overtime Cody Hall scored on the power play as the Cupar Canucks defeated the Raymore Rockets 4-3 in Raymore. The Canucks got two goals, including a power play marker, from Matthew Boha. Godric Tham also scored for the Canucks. Bradyn Melrose score two power play goals for the Rockets and Travis Mohr also scored. Tanner Kehler picked up the win in net for the Canucks and David Perkin was in net for the Rockets. The Rockets had four minor penalties, a major and two game misconducts. The Canucks had eight minor penalties and one misconduct. Rocket’s Michael Jordan was assessed a match penalty in overtime and received a three game suspension.

On Saturday evening the Canucks hosted the Rockets. Raymore scored twice in the first period and three times in each of the final two periods and defeated the Canucks 8-3. Josh Belair led the way for the Rockets with three goals, including two on the power play. Cody Mapes scored twice and the balance of the scoring came from Cole Melrose, Tyrell Shulko and Mason Nedjelski. Cupar got two goals from Donovan Chow, including a power play goal, and a goal from Dallas Michlik. Riley Focht-Gabriel continued his strong play in net picking up his sixth win of the year in net for the Rockets. Colby Miller was in net for the Canucks. The Canucks had nine minor penalties and a misconduct and the Rockets had ten minor penalties. In Avonlea on Saturday evening, the Lumsden Monarchs scored four times in the second period and went on to defeat the Arrows 7-1. Jesse Matlock and Kyle Johnson each scored twice for the Monarchs. Brady Aulie, Liam Brennan and Torey Lindsey also scored for the Monarchs. Kristian Brooks scored for the Arrows. Matt Weninger picked up the win in net for the Monarchs and Dean Brothen was in net for the Arrows. The Monarchs had three minor penalties and a misconduct and the Arrows did not have a penalty in the game. Also on Saturday evening the Strasbourg Maroons defeated the Wynyard Monarchs 7-4 in Strasbourg.

We have a tie for second place right now between Lumsden (10-4-1) and Raymore (10-5-1) and the Strasbourg Maroons are in third place just two points behind at 8-5-3. Raymore has the tiebreaker over Lumsden and Lumsden has tiebreaker over Strasbourg. Strasbourg plays Raymore on last game of season with each team having a victory in their series. The Cupar Canucks will finish fifth. Avonlea is sixth two points ahead of Wynyard. Lumsden will be in Bethune to play the Bulldogs Wednesday evening. On Friday evening Wynyard is in Raymore and Cupar is in Strasbourg. On Sunday at 7:00 p.m. the Lumsden Monarchs host the Wynyard Monarchs in a game that was moved from Sunday, February 5th. After this weekend there are three games left to be played. There is one game that was moved from this Saturday evening to accommodate provincials, Bethune @ Cupar. This game has not been rescheduled yet. We apologize for that.

Provincial Schedules are listed under the Provincials tab. You can follow us on twitter http://twitter.com/HighwayHockey all of our tweets, which include updates from all games, appear on the front page just under the Upcoming Games column if you just want to follow us on the website during games. You can also follow my account the Pensky File http://twitter.com/GerladT

Thank you for supporting the Highway Hockey League and please get out to a game near you…

Gerry