President's Update - February 6th, 2017

Season ends and Playoffs begin….The Lumsden Monarchs defeated the Avonlea Arrows last Tuesday evening 6-1 and the Strasbourg Maroons defeated the Raymore Rockets 3-1 on Wednesday evening to end the regular season . Lumsden secured second place with a 12-5-1 record and will play the Wynyard Monarchs in a first round best of three series; Strasbourg finished third place with a 10-5-3 record and will play the Avonlea Arrows in their first round series and the Raymore Rockets finished 11-6-1 in fourth place and will play the Cupar Canucks in their first round series. The Bethune Bulldogs finished the season undefeated and in first place and have a bye into the semi-finals.

On Tuesday evening in Lumsden, there was no scoring in the first period. In the second period Mason Haus, Kyle Johnson and Liam Brennan with a power play goal scored to put the Monarchs up 3-0 after two periods. In the third period Austin Preete, Torey Lindsay and Mason Haus with his second goal of the game but this time on the power play scored for Lumsden. James Dombowsky scored for the Arrows on the power play. Matt Weninger stopped 24 shots in the Monarch’s net to secure the win. Dean Brothen stopped 45 shots in the Avonlea net. Avonlea had seven minor penalties and Lumsden had five. In Raymore on Wednesday evening, Tyson Orban scored in the first period to give the Maroons a 1-0 lead after 20 minutes. There was no scoring in the second period. In the third period, the Rockets tied the game early with a power play goal from Cole Melrose. Halfway through the third period Greg Ferguson scored what would be the winning goal. Dylan Marcott scored an empty net goal and the final was 3-1 for the Maroons. Jeremy Ellis stopped 35 shots in the Maroon’s net and picked up the win. Riley Focht-Gabriel stopped 40 shots in the Rocket’s net. The Maroons had five minor penalties and the Rockets had four.

The Lumsden Monarchs will host the Wynyard Monarchs on Tuesday evening in game one of their first round series. Game two is Friday evening in Wynyard at 8:30 p.m. Lumsden defeated Wynyard three times this year and scored eight goals in each game….8-2, 8-2 and 8-5 in their most recent game in Lumsden. The Raymore Rockets will host the Cupar Canucks on Wednesday evening in game one of their series. Raymore won 10-3 early in the season and then in January lost 4-3 in overtime at home and then defeated the Canucks 8-3 in their final game of the series. The Strasbourg Maroons will host the Avonlea Arrows on Friday evening. All three games these two teams played were decided by one goal. Avonlea won the first game 6-5 in overtime in Strasbourg. Strasbourg won game two of this season series 5-4 in Avonlea and the third game was won 6-5 by the Maroons in overtime in Avonlea. Game two of this series will be the following Wednesday in Avonlea.

Bulldogs win their round one series against Davidson Cyclones…After defeating Davidson 5-4 in double overtime in Bethune last week, the Bulldogs defeated the Cyclones 7-2 this past Saturday evening and moved into the south semi-final in Provincial ‘A’. Bethune will now play the winner of the Bienfait vs. Milestone series which wraps up this weekend. Bethune got two goals from Jake Ulmer and Mike Reich to lead the way for the Bulldogs. Kyle Ross, Drew George and Lucas Ulmer also scored. Final shots in this game were 35-21 Bulldogs. The Lumsden Monarchs opened up their Provincial ‘A’ series in Leroy with a 10-2 victory on Saturday afternoon. Lumsden led 3-2 after one period and 8-2 after two periods. Liam Brennan led the way with three goals. Tyler Penny and Joey MacDonald each had two goals. Also scoring for the Monarchs were Brady Aulie, Torey Lindsay and Dale Spelchen. Game two of this series is in Lumsden on Saturday at 7 p.m. This will complete a trio of games in Lumsden on Saturday as the Midget AA’s host the Weyburn Redwings at 1:45 and game two of a Midget Provincial ‘B’ series against Maple Creek will be played at 4:30 p.m. On Friday evening the Avonlea Arrows were in Balgonie and lost 6-1. Game two of that series is this Saturday evening in Avonlea. The Cupar Canucks lost to Bredenbury in their Provincial ‘D’ series opener in Cupar and play game two of that series on Saturday evening at 6:00 in Bredenbury. The Raymore Rockets played the first game of their Provincial ‘C’ series against the Drake Canucks in Drake on Saturday evening and the game ended in a 2-2 tie. Game two of this two game total point series is this Saturday evening in Raymore.

All Star ballots are out to the teams and I will go over the nominees next week. What we do know is that Kyle Ross from the Bethune Bulldogs has won the Tyson Sievert Scoring Champion Trophy for the second year in the row. We also know that the tandem of Ryan Holfeld and Ryan Seibel from the Bulldogs have won the Gunnar Lindal Memorial Trophy for team goaltending for the 2016-17 season. The Bethune Bulldogs have won the League Pennant Award for finishing first place in our league.
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/GeraldT

Thank you for supporting the Highway Hockey League. Please get out to a Provincial or League playoff game near you!

Gerry