President;s Update - December 7th, 2015

Cupar Canucks win first game of year…Showdown in Lumsden…Wynyard wins pair in Avonlea...The Cupar Canucks won their first game of the year with a 7-4 victory over the Strasbourg Maroons on Friday evening in Cupar. The Canucks had period leads of 2-1 and 4-3 before scoring three times in the third period to make sure they picked up their first win of the year. Devin Stecyk and Dylan Mohr each scored twice for Cupar. Other goals were scored by Tyler Willyman, Brayden Frank and Cody Hall with the eventual game winning goal. Garret Johnson and Greg Ferguson scored on the power play for the Maroons. Tye Exner and Eric Schultz also scored for Strasbourg. Tanner Kehler picked up his first win of the year in net for the Canucks and Tyler Kifferling was in net for the Maroons. Cupar has nine minor penalties and Strasbourg had eight. Each team had one misconduct. In Lumsden the undefeated Bethune Bulldogs played the second place Lumsden Monarchs on Friday evening. Very interesting game to say the least, kind of a got my money’s worth kind of game…the first period saw Lumsden take the first lead on a goal by Jared Adams. That goal was answered by Russ Neilson on the power play but Lumsden would score late in the period on a goal from Ward Szucki to take the period 2-1. The first period saw the Monarchs outshoot the Bulldogs 14-10. There was some good defence and goaltending in the first period and then something happened….early in the first period Drew George would score Bethune’s second power play goal of the evening and then Szucki would score his second goal of the night and that was followed by a Bulldog’s goal from Joel Kot and that was immediately followed by a Monarch’s goal from Braeden Raiwet …four goals, four shots in one minute and twelve seconds and the score was 4-3 early in the period for Lumsden. Before the period ended we had another five goals scored. George scored on the power play again and Lucas Ulmer and Barrett Nielson would also score for the Bulldogs. Lumsden would score two power play goals off the sticks of Tyler Murray and Andrew Perrault and it was 6-6 going into the third period. Drew George would score his third goal of the game early in the third period to give the Bulldogs a one goal lead. Lumsden would then get power play goals from Andrew Perrault and Tyler Murray to retake lead at 8-7. Jacob Ulmer would then score to tie game up again with eight minutes left in the game. We would see no more goals until Kyle Johnson would score his second goal of the game with just over two minutes left in the game giving the Monarchs a 9-8 lead. The Monarchs would take a penalty in the last minute of the game and with just twelve seconds left in the game Joel Kot would score his second of the game to pull the Bulldogs even 9-9 and put this game into overtime. The overtime was entertaining and produced no goals so we went to a shootout. It was here the goalies got some revenge as this took eleven rounds and included seven rounds where neither team scored. Finally two hours and thirty five minutes from the start of the evening Barrett Nielson would score and that would be the winner in a 10-9 win for the Bulldogs. Bethune outshot Lumsden 49-41. Ryan Senft would pick up his fourth win of the year. Kurtis Sollosy would settle for the tie point in net for the Monarchs. Lumsden received eight minor penalties and Bethune had seven. Each team scored four power play goals. Of note Bethune had allowed only seven goals in their first five games and Lumsden had allowed thirteen goals in their first four games. That would be twenty goals against in nine games between them…then eighteen against in this one game alone.

On Saturday evening the Raymore Rockets defeated the Strasbourg Maroons 10-1 and moved into second place in the HHL. Tyrell Shulko scored four times to lead the Rockets. Michael Jordan and Chad Filteau each had two goals for the Rockets. Todd MacMurchy and Josh Jordan with the only power play goal of the game also scored for Raymore. Greg Ferguson scored the lone Maroon goal. Travis Bosch picked up the win in net for the Rockets and Jeremy Ellis was in net for the Maroons. Each team was assessed two minor penalties. In Avonlea, the Wynyard Monarchs got a shorthanded goal in the first period from Chad Mazurak, a power play goal from Matt Strueby in the second period and an empty net from Riley Storzuk goal in the third period on their way to a 3-1 victory over the Avonlea Arrows. Josh Jelinski scored in the first period for the Arrows. David Perkin picked up the win in net for the Monarchs and Dean Brother was in net for the Arrows. Each team had two minor penalties. On Sunday afternoon these two teams met again in Avonlea. Wynyard had period leads of 3-2 and 5-4 and went on to a 7-4 victory that moved them onto a second place tie with Raymore Rockets. Brett Leffler with two goals and an assist and Nowell Greasley with a goal and two assists led the way for the Monarchs. Lyle Ostapowich, Brett Plouffe, Riley Storzuk and Matt Strueby also scored for the Monarchs. Ben Struthers scored twice for the Arrows. Dayton Picard and Kyle Oleniuk also scored for the Arrows. Kevin Orthner picked up the win in net for the Monarchs and Aaron Husband was in net for the Arrows. Wynyard was assessed two minor penalties and Avonlea had one. There were a total of seven penalties assessed in the two games played.

Mike Reich from the Bulldogs continues to lead our scoring race with 6 goals and a league leading 13 assists and 19 points. Teammate Kyle Ross is second with 9 goals and 7 assists for 16 points. Tyrell Shulko has moved into third place with a league leading 10 goals to go along with 3 assists for 13 points. Tanner Exner from the Maroons is next with 12 points followed by Kyle Oleniuk from the Arrows and Jacob Ulmer and Russ Nielson from the Bulldogs with 11 points. Rounding out the top ten with 10 points each are Kyle Johnson from Lumsden, Dayton Picard from Avonlea and Josh Jordan from the Rockets. Other scoring stats of note…Russ Nielson of the Bulldogs has two game winning goals and has scored the first goal of game twice…Tyrell Shulko from the Rockets leads all scorers with 3 power play goals and also has two game winning goals so far this year…Dale Spelchen from Wynyard has two game winning goals…At the other ends of the rink, David Perkin (2-0-0) leads all goalies with a .50 GAA. Ryan Seibel from the Bulldogs is also 2-0-0 and has a GAA of 1.50. Will Hood from Lumsden (1-1-0) is at 3.00. Ryan Senft from the Bulldogs leads all goalies with 4 wins; Travis Bosch from the Rockets leads all goalies with 305 minutes played. In team statistics, the Avonlea Arrows have had 15 power play opportunities and lead all teams with a 33.3% success rate. The Lumsden Monarchs are next with a 32.1% power play on 28 opportunities and third are the Raymore Rockets at 31.6%, 19 power plays. The top penalty killing unit would be the Wynyard Monarchs at 90.9%, 22 times shorthanded. Next are the Raymore Rockets at 88.2%, 17 times shorthanded followed by the Lumsden Monarchs at 77.1%, 35 times shorthanded. The Rockets lead all teams with a special teams rating of 119.8 followed by Lumsden at 109.3 and Avonlea at 106.7.

Lots of hockey this week beginning with the second place Raymore Rockets (4-1-0) in Lumsden to play the fourth place Monarchs (3-1-1).  On Wednesday evening we have the rescheduled Cupar Canucks (1-2-0) in Wynyard to play the Monarchs (4-2-0) at 8:30 p.m. With the addition of this game the Monarchs are playing five games in eight days. On Thursday evening the first place Bethune Bulldogs (6-0-0) will be in Strasbourg to play the seventh place Strasbourg Maroons (0-6-1).On Friday evening Cupar will be in Avonlea to play the Arrows (1-5-0) and the northern Monarchs will play the southern Monarchs in Lumsden. On Saturday evening the second meeting of the year between last year’s Schultz Cup finalists will be played in Bethune between the Wynyard Monarchs and the Bethune Bulldogs. Also on Saturday evening Lumsden will be in Strasbourg and Raymore will be in Cupar.

We are distributing 50^th anniversary stickers for helmets 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 

You will see some changes to our web pages in the coming week. The colors are changing to make it easier to read. We are fixing the archive pages and we will get all of the statistics from our alumni updated. Please note that when you are on our mobile view on your handheld you do have the option of going to our regular desktop at the bottom of the page.

Thank you for your continued support of senior hockey in Saskatchewan and the your support of the Highway Hockey League…there is lots of hockey this week so please get out to a game near you and enjoy senior hockey at its best.

Gerry Tomkins

President