President's Update - November 23rd, 2015

***Cupar @ Wynyard game set for Saturday evening is postponed - will be rescheduled***

Bethune Bulldogs move into first place…..

Defending champion Bethune Bulldogs picked up two wins on the weekend and moved to 3-0-0 and into first place in the HHL. The Bulldogs are the only undefeated team early in the season. On Friday evening Ryan Senft pitched a shutout for his first win of the year in a 4-0 victory over the hometown Wynyard Monarchs. Mike Reich scored twice, including a shorthanded goal, to lead the way for the Bulldogs. Shea Van Leuven and Russ Neilson with the game winner also scored. Both teams had seven minor penalties. On Saturday evening the Bulldogs had their home opener and defeated the Raymore Rockets 6-2. The first period was scoreless but in the second period Shea Van Luven scored twice including the game winning goal and Kyle Ross scored before Josh Jordan got the Rockets on the board late in the period. Barrett Neilson would score on the power play in the third followed by goals from Mike Reich and Lucas Ulmer to give the Bulldogs a 6-1 lead with just over eleven minutes left in the game. Tyrell Shulko would score for the Rockets to make the final 6-2. Ryan Senft picked up his second win of the season stopping 23 shots.  Travis Bosch was in the net for the Rockets and stopped 51 of 57 shots fired his way. Bethune had five penalties and Raymore had six.

On Friday evening the Cupar Canucks played their first game of the season against the Lumsden Monarchs. The Monarchs would score twice on the power play and twice shorthanded on their way to a 7-1 win over the Canucks. Brett Boha would score the first goal of the game to give the Canucks a 1-0 lead. This would be the first time in two games the Monarchs were trailing in a game and Austin Preete, Liam Brennan (ppg) and Andrew Perrault would respond with goals to make it 3-1 going into the second period. Liam Brennan would score his second goal of the night and Carter Selinger and Zak Anderson would score to make it 6-1 going into the third period. Selinger would score his second goal of the night in the third period to make the final score 7-1 Monarchs. Kurtis Sollosy picked up his first win of the season in net for Lumsden. Tanner Kehler was in net for the Canucks. The Canucks had fourteen minor penalties, four misconducts and two game misconducts. One of the Canuck’s game misconducts came in the last ten minutes and resulted in a one game suspension to Matthew Boha. The Monarchs had fifteen minor penalties, one major penalty, five misconducts and a game misconduct. Warren Szucki had a major for a CFB and received a suspension. A great game was played in Raymore on Friday evening as the Raymore Rockets won 4-3 against the Strasbourg Maroons in a shootout.  Mitch McNish and Quinn McIntosh scored early in the first period to give the Maroons the early lead. Tyrell Shulko would score late in the period on the power play to get the Rockets on the board.  Josh Jordan would score on the power play with the only goal of the second period. Sean Delwo would score early in the third period to restore the Maroon’s lead. Tyrell Shulko would score his second goal of the game with just 27 seconds left and would also score the shootout winner for the Rockets. Shulko would end up being in on every Rocket scoring play with two goals, an assist and the shootout winner.  Travis Bosch picked up the win in net for the Rockets stopping 20 of 23 Maroon shots. Jeremy Ellis was in net for the Maroons and stopped 45 of 48 shots. Raymore has three minor penalties and Strasbourg had five minor penalties and a game misconduct. The game misconduct came in the last ten minutes of game which resulted in a one game suspension to Jory Miller.

On Saturday evening the Wynyard Monarchs defeated the Lumsden Monarchs 2-0 in Wynyard. Dale Spelchen scored in the first period and then added a shorthanded goal in the third period for Wynyard.  Wynyard had eight minor penalties and Lumsden had nine. David Perkin picked up the win in net for Wynyard and Will Hood was in net for Lumsden.  In Strasbourg, The Avonlea Arrows picked up their first win of the year in Strasbourg with an 8-5 victory over the Maroons. Greg Ferguson opened the scoring in the first period for the Maroons and that goal was followed by goals from Tyler Howatt and Andrew Sillers to give the Arrows a 2-1 lead going into the second period. In the second period Scott Arnold would score early and the Arrows went up 3-1 but the Maroons would get goals from Aaron Johnson, Mitch McNish and Eric Schultz to take a 4-3 lead going into the third period. In the third the Arrows would score five times. Dayton Picard and Josh Jelinski would score and then Kyle Oleniuk would score the last three goals for the Arrows for the natural hat trick. Oleniuk had a power play goal, a shorthanded goal and an even strength goal.  Tanner Exner scored the only Maroon goal of the period. Aaron Husband picked up the win in net for the Arrows. Tyler Kifferling was in net for the Maroons. The Arrows had two minor penalties and the Maroons had one.

On Tuesday evening the Cupar Canucks are in Bethune to play the Bulldogs. On Friday evening Avonlea is in Raymore to play the Rockets. On Saturday evening the Lumsden Monarchs are hosting their annual Wall of Fame game against the Avonlea Arrows. This year’s inductees are Brad Haus and Doug Croft. Also on Saturday evening Strasbourg is in Bethune.

Pocket schedules are now in your community. We are distributing 50^th anniversary helmet stickers for the players and offiials and there are a few extra and if you would like one let me know. You can follow us on Twitter http://twitter.com/HighwayHockey  All of our tweets, which include updates from all games, appear on our front page just under the Upcoming Games column if you just want to follow on the website. You can also follow my account Pensky File http://twitter.com/GeraldT 

Thank you for supporting senior hockey and please get out to a game near you.

Gerry Tomkins

President - HHL