President's Update - December 1st, 2014

Two games were played Friday evening. In Avonlea the visiting Rockets defeated the Arrows 6-2.  Cody Mapes with two goals (one ppg), Josh Jordan with three assists and Michael Jordan with a goal and two assists led the way for the Rockets. Kyle Schmalenberg, Jared Adams and Todd MacMurchy also scored for the Rockets. Justin Nelson with a power play goal and Calvin Watson with an even strength goal replied for the Arrows. Kyle Oleniuk assisted on both Avonlea goals. Avonlea took three minor penalties while Raymore had six minor penalties. John Arscott picked up the win in net for the Rockets. Kelley Lueck was in net for the Arrows. In Cupar, Austin Preete scored on the power play in overtime to give the Lumsden Monarchs a 3-2 victory over the Cupar Canucks. Bryan McNabb Jr. opened the scoring in the game in the first period and Shay Wirll would then score in the first period for the Monarchs to send this game into the second period tied. Elliot Hubick scored for the Canucks and just sixteen seconds later Chris Whitteron would score on the power play game to tie the game again. There was no scoring in the third period. The Canucks were assessed eleven minor penalties, a major penalty and a game misconduct. The Monarchs were assessed ten minor penalties, two misconducts, a major and a game misconduct. Will Hood stopped 41 of43 shots for his first win of the year while Colby Miller stopped 23 of 26 shots fired at the Canucks net.

On Saturday evening, the Raymore Rockets hosted League champions Wynyard Monarchs. The Rockets defeated the Monarchs 4-1 and ran their record to 3-0-1 since losing their opening game of the year against Wynyard. Brett Leffler would open the scoring in the first period to give the Monarchs a 1-0 lead heading to the second period. Nelson Davis would tie up the game for the Rockets and then Cody Mapes and Michael Jordan would score on the power play to give the Rockets a 3-1 lead. Tyler Murray would finish off the scoring for the Rockets late in the third period. Kevin Orthner picked up the win in the net for the Rockets. Dave Perkin was in net for Wynyard.  Wynyard had ten minor penalties and Raymore had four. In Bethune the Bulldogs scored three times in the second period and three more times in third period to win 7-2 over the Arrows. Dustin MacAngus and Mike Reich each scored twice for the Bulldogs. Jake Ulmer, Ryan Funk and Kyle Ross also scored for Bethune. Calvin Watson scored both goals for the Arrows with both goals coming on the power play. Ryan Seibel picked up the win in net for the Bulldogs. Kelley Lueck was in net for the Arrows. Bethune had five minor penalties, a major and a game misconduct. The Arrows had three minor penalties, one major and a game misconduct. Down the highway in Lumsden, the Strasbourg Maroons had a big night with a 10-1 victory over Lumsden. Greg Ferguson led the way with three goals and one assist. Mitchell McNish had two goals and one assist. Also scoring for the Maroons were Kurtis Decker, Jory Miller, Tyson Orban, Brady Heintz and Evan Meyer scored the rest of the Maroons goals. Austin Preete scored his second goal in two nights for the Monarchs. Each team had two minor penalties. Jeremy Ellis picked up the win for the Maroons while Will Hood and Kurtis Sollosy were in net for the Monarchs.  This was Wall of Fame night for the Monarchs. Bob Eberts and Ryan Mymryk, both long time members of the Monarchs had their names placed up on the rink wall of fame. Congratulations to both.  Randy Kuntz was also presented with the 2013-2014 Ken Hale Memorial Award for Manager of the year.

Suspensions of one game were assessed to four players in three different games this past week…Josh Jelinski/Avonlea Arrows, Mark Jelinski/Avonlea Arrows, Ian Clarke/Cupar Canucks and Kayne Ulmer/Bethune Bulldogs.

Raymore Rocket’s Michael Jordan leads our scoring race with 5 goals and 6 assists and 11 points.  Teammate Jared Adams is right behind Jordan with 5 goals and 5 assists. Rounding out the top five are Calvin Watson/Avonlea, Shay Wirll/Lumsden and Josh Jordan/Raymore, each with 8 points.  Jeremy Ellis of the Strasbourg Maroons leads all goalies with a 1.50 GAA. David Perkin from Raymore leads all goalies with 240 minutes played. It’s still early in the season but team stats are starting to formulate…Team statistics show Strasbourg with a 40.9% success rate on the power play and Wynyard at 40%. Cupar Canucks power play success rate is at 5.6%. Strasbourg and Bethune are tied as penalty kill leaders at 87.5%. Raymore is seventh at 68.2%.

Tuesday evening the Bethune Bulldogs (2-1-0) are in Strasbourg to meet the undefeated Maroons (3-0-0) in a rescheduled game from last weekend. On Friday evening, the Maroons will be in Raymore to play the Rockets (3-1-1), Bethune Bulldogs (2-1) are in Cupar to play the Canucks (2-2-1) and the Avonlea Arrows are in Lumsden to play the Monarchs (3-3-0). On Saturday evening we have one game. The Wynyard Monarchs (2-2-0) are in Strasbourg.

Make sure you pick up a pocket schedule and I apologize to the folks in Wynyard that got theirs late...weather got in the way last weekend. Please note that the Highway Hockey twitter feed is now on our main page for your convenience….so you don’t have to be on twitter to get the updates from our league. The Highway Hockey feed will show all tweets sent from our feed right on our main page. You will get our new “mobile view” on your handhelds….there is an option at the bottom of the page to go to a desktop view. If you prefer you can just follow us  http://twitter.com/highwayhockeyor on the Pensky File http://twitter.com/GeraldT

Please get out to a game near you and thank you for supporting the Highway Hockey League.

Gerry Tomkins

President - HHL