President's Update - April 1st, 2014

Avonlea Arrows win Provincial 'D' title....Wynyard Monarchs win Provincial 'A' title....

Congratulations to the Wynyard Monarchs on capturing the Provincial ‘A’ title on Saturday evening with a 4-3 victory over the Lanigan Pirates. Matt Strueby scored the winning goal with three minutes left in the game. Other Monarchs scoring came from Brett Leffler, Cody Straker and Justin Zadorozniak. Dave Perkin stopped 39 of 42 shots fired his way for the victory.  The Monarchs also won the Robert Schultz Championship Trophy on Thursday evening with a 4-3 victory over the Bethune Bulldogs. Congratulations to the Avonlea Arrows winning the Provincial 'D' title with a 5-2 victory over the St. Walburg Eagles on Saturday evening. Captain Calvin Watson scored the winning goal. Lonny Forrester and Josh Jelenski each scored twice. Nathan Fischl played a great game and picked up the win in net for the Arrows.

Here are our 2013-2014 Award winners. Congratulations to Pat Thompson-Gale of the Southey Marlins who received five awards this past Friday evening at the Marlins windup. Trent Ulmer from the Bethune Bulldogs won four awards in 2004, Derek Halldorson from the Southey Marlins won four awards in 2007 and Neil Kodman from the Strasbourg Maroons won four awards in 2012. Five awards sets a new standard and congratulations on an amazing year.

2013-14 Highway Hockey League Award Winners

All Star Team:

Goal – Nathan Fischl – Avonlea

Defence – Mark Ardelan, Avonlea

Defence – Joel Kot, Bethune

Center – Pat Thompson-Gale, Southey

Left Wing – Brett Leffler, Wynyard

Right Wing – Shay Neufeld, Avonlea

Manager (Ken Hale Memorial)– Randy Kuntz, Lumsden

Coach (Lynwood Miller Trophy) – Jaret Nelson, Avonlea

Scoring Champion (Tyson Sievert Scoring Champion Trophy)– Pat Thompson-Gale, Southey

Team Goaltending – Fischl/Munroe, Avonlea

MVP – Pat Thompson-Gale, Southey

MVP Local (Eckdahl-Jenkins Trophy)– Pat Thompson-Gale, Southey

Rookie (Stats-VanTrott Trophy) – Brett Boha, Cupar

Sportsmanlike – Pat Thompson-Gale, Southey

Pennant Winners – Avonlea Arrows

Robert Schultz Cup Champions– Wynyard Monarchs

WYNYARD MONARCHS 2013-14 HHL Champions

Matt Strueby scores with 58 seconds left in third period and the Wynyard Monarchs defeated the Bethune Bulldogs 4-3....

So ends the Highway Hockey League's 48th season....In what was probably one of the most entertaining games of the playoffs, the Wynyard Monarchs and Bethune Bulldogs gave a capacity crowd their money's worth. It was truly an entertaining game. In the first period the Bulldogs had 13 shots to the Monarchs 5 but it was goal by Robert Hillier 15:16 into the first period that gave the Monarchs a 1-0 lead heading into the second period. The Bulldogs would tie the game 10:27 into the second period on a goal from Derek Fuchs. Bryan Kauk would then score four minutes later for the Monarchs with a great individual effort and an angle shot beat goalie Seibel on the short side. The period would end 2-1 for Wynyard and the shots were 20-16 for the Bulldogs. Early in the second period Kayne Ulmer would score for the Bulldogs. Five minutes later at the 7:47 mark Lucas Ulmer would get the turnover in the Monarchs end and score shorthanded to give the Bulldogs their first lead of the game at 3-2. With just over four minutes left in the game Bryan Kauk would score his second goal of the game after a turnover in the Bulldogs end...it looked and felt like overtime until there was just 58 seconds left in the game and Matt Strueby scored. Both goalies had big saves throughout, there were good hits, good defence and only 7 minor penalties in the game. In fact this was the first game of the finals that there were no power plays. David Perkin picks up the win in net and Ryan Seibel was in net for the Bulldogs. This is the second time that the Monarchs have won the Robert Schultz Trophy. They also defeated the Bulldogs in four games in 2008. We will have pictures up tomorrow. Thank you to everyone who came out to watch this very entertaining game and thank you to the players for providing great action throughout

We are not holding an all-star banquet this year but we will be making sure that awards are passed out at team functions in the coming weeks. We will post pictures as we give out the awards at various locations.

The HHL will conduct a spring meeting in April and then will reconvene in early October to organize the next hockey season. On behalf of the League thank you to all for making this past season successful. There are a lot of people throughout the League that make things work for their local team and for the League. Whether you are on the executive, coaching, selling 50/50 tickets, working the door, timekeeping, scorekeeping, refereeing or are a player it all has to work on game night….thank you for your contributions. To our fans thank you for your support as we look forward to the beginning of a new season next fall. We are all just trying to keep Senior hockey alive and relevant in rural Saskatchewan and with the support of volunteers, the players and the fans we will keep senior hockey strong for a long time.

Gerry Tomkins

HHL President

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