President's Update - February 16th, 2015

Wynyard Monarchs move on to semi-finals….The Wynyard Monarchs have advanced to the league semi-finals after sweeping the Lumsden Monarchs this past week. On Wednesday evening Wynyard scored six goals in the first period on their way to a 7-2 home victory. Brett Leffler had two goals and three assists to lead the way for Wynyard. Riley Storzuk scored twice and the rest of the scoring came from Justin Zadoroozniak and Matt Strueby with a power play goal. Austin Preete and Brady Aulie scored for Lumsden. Mason Brewster picked up the win in net for Wynyard. Kurtis Sollosy was in net for Lumsden in the first period and Will Hood was in net for the last two periods. Lumsden had six minor penalties and Wynyard had five. On Friday evening in Lumsden the teams were tied 1-1 after one period. Shots were 11-10 for Wynyard. Dylan Bentz opened the scoring five minutes into the game and Brendan Ryan scored for Lumsden late in the period. In the second period Wynyard outshot Lumsden 20-4 and led going into the third period 3-1 on goals by Eric Popadynec on power play and Riley Storzuk who scored with just eighteen seconds left to play in the second period. It was at this stoppage that the majority of the penalties of the game were called. The end result was that Wynyard received two game misconducts and Lumsden three. As a result of the calls Jeff Harris from Lumsden was given a two game suspension for third man in and Cody Straker from Wynyard received an Aggressor penalty which resulted in a one game suspension. The third period only saw two penalties but also saw Wynyard score four times. Donovan Hall scored on the power play and even strength goals then came from Jordan Karakochuk, Matt Strueby and Justin Zadoroozniak. Shay Wirll and Brendan Ryan with his second goal of the night would complete the scoring for Lumsden and make the final 7-3. Dave Perkin stopped 21 shots to pick up the win. Will Hood Stopped 33 shots fired his way for Lumsden.

The Strasbourg Maroons and Avonlea Arrows played game one of their best of three series on Wednesday evening. Justin Nelson and Troy Murray would give the Arrows an early 2-0 lead.  Tyson Orban would get the Maroons on the board but Stuart Holland would score for Arrows to restore two goal lead. Evan Meyers would score for Maroons late in the period and the Arrows led 3-2 going into the second period. There was no scoring in the second period. The Strasbourg Maroons were the least penalized team in our league this year and the Avonlea Arrows are traditionally one of the lowest penalized teams in the league. The Maroons did not take a penalty in the first two periods but were penalized three times in the third period and the Arrows jumped all over those infractions with two power play goals from Shay Neufeld and Stuart Holland and had a 5-2 lead halfway through the third period. Greg Ferguson would score late in the third period for the Maroons and then the Arrows would take their third penalty of the night and within five seconds of being shorthanded the Arrows gave up a goal to Eric Schultz and it was 5-4 with just over two minutes left in period. The Arrows held on for the upset win and will meet the Maroons at home in game two of this series on Thursday evening in Avonlea. Kelley Lueck stopped 26 of 30 shots fired his way for the win in the Arrows net and Jeremy Ellis stopped 25 of 30 shots sent his way in the Maroons net.

The Raymore Rockets and Cupar Canucks did not play on Saturday evening in Cupar nor did most teams involved in games around Regina due to weather and road conditions. Game two of this series will be played in Cupar on Friday evening. The Rockets hold 1-0 lead in this series.

In Provincial play this past week the Lumsden Monarchs lost to the Eatonia Huskies 13-6 on Saturday evening. The Monarchs lost the series 16-7. The Bethune Bulldogs defeated the Bruno T-Birds 7-3 at home on Friday evening and won their Provincial ‘A’ series 2 games to 0. They will now face the Davidson Cyclones. The Avonlea Arrows tied the Central Butte Flyers 3-3 on Sunday and won their Provincial ‘D’ series 8-4. The Arrows will play the Imperial Sabres in the second round. As soon as we have the next series for Avonlea and Bethune we will have them posted. Raymore, Lumsden, Wynyard and Strasbourg areelinated from Provincials.

Next week we will review our Awards nominees for the 2014-15 season.

Highway Hockey League 50^th Anniversary is next year….we could use some assistance….The Highway Hockey League will be celebrating 50 years of existence next season.  We are just in the planning stages and we could use some help. There are a lot of ideas of things we can do to celebrate 50 years of senior hockey and nothing has been finalized. At this point it is all about ideas, locating alumni, finding volunteers for a possible weekend celebration and getting sponsorship assistance. I would ask that you email our league highwayhockey@gmail.com if you have any ideas you would like to share, if you would like to help and most importantly we are looking for former players, coaches, managers and volunteers to provide us with at least an email address. We are also asking you to pass along our request for getting that information from anyone you know that was formerly associated with the league. If you have any interest in this 50^th anniversary please supply your email address. If we can get a quick following we will be sending out a weekly email with all our updates. Thank you for your assistance!

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. 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

Thank you for supporting the Highway Hockey League. Playoffs and Provincials continue this week. Please get out to a game near you.

Gerry Tomkins

President - HHL