President's Update - December 14th, 2015

This past Tuesday evening  Travis Bosch stopped 38 of 39 shots and Tyrell Shulko scored three times as the Raymore Rockets held on to second place with a 4-1 victory over the Lumsden Monarchs. Cody Mapes scored Raymore’s other goal on the power play in the second period that ended up being the winning goal. Jared Adams scored Lumsden’s lone goal on the power play in the second period. Will Hood stopped 40 of 44 shots in net for the Monarchs. Bosch picked up his fifth win of the year over a Monarchs team that had scored seventeen goals in their previous two games.  The Rockets had eight minor penalties while the Monarchs had seven. On Wednesday evening in Wynyard, the Monarchs hosted the Cupar Canucks in a rescheduled game from November 28th. Wynyard scored four times in the first period including two goals in the last minute of the period to take a 4-1 lead into the second period. Cody Straker and Riley Storzuk scored power play goals and Donovan Hall and Dillon Shewchuk scored in that last minute for the Monarchs. Brayden Frank scored Cupar’s only goal of the first period.  In the second period Hall would score his second goal of the game on the power play and Dale Spelchen would score.  Last year’s scoring champion, Brett Leffler, had three assists. Godric Tham and Travis Orr would score for Cupar in the second period. There was no scoring in the third period. Kevin Orthner picked up the win in net for the Monarchs and Tanner Kehler was in net for the Canucks.  The Canucks were assessed nine minor penalties and a misconduct and the Monarchs were assessed nine minor penalties, a major penalty, a misconduct and a game misconduct. As the result of an instigator call Cody Straker was suspended for one game. On Thursday evening the first place Bethune Bulldogs moved to 7-0-0 with an 11-3 victory over the last place Strasbourg Maroons. Kyle Ross led the way for the Bulldogs with four goals. Shea Van Luven scored twice including a power play goal. Lucas Ulmer also scored a power play goal and had two assists. Other Bethune goals were scored by Barrett Nielson, Tyler Riche, Dustin MacAngus and Drew George. Jake Ulmer had four assists. Sean Delwo scored twice and Greg Ferguson added a power play goal for the Maroons. Ryan Siebel picked up the win in net for the Bulldogs. Tyler Kifferling was in net for two periods and Jeremy Ellis for one period for the Maroons. The Bulldogs had three minor penalties and the Maroons six.

On Friday evening there were two games played. In Lumsden, the Monarchs played Wynyard in a wide open affair. Kyle Johnson and Jared Adams with a power play goal scored for Lumsden in the first period and Chad Mazurak scored for Wynyard. In the second period there were seven goals scored. Brett Leffler scored three times, once on the power play, and Dale Spelchen scored on the power play for Wynyard. Ward Szucki, Andrew Perrault and Austin Preete scored for Lumsden and it was 5-5 going into the third period. Each team had 38 shots registered in just two periods of play. The third period tightened up a bit and it with fewer than four minutes left Carter Selinger scored to put Lumsden up 6-5. Zak Anderson would score an empty net goal to make the final 7-5 Lumsden. Will Hood stopped 47 shots in net for Lumsden and picked up the win. Kevin Orthner stopped 44 shots in the Wynyard net. Lumsden had six minor penalties and Wynyard had four. In Avonlea the Arrows scored four first period goals and held on for a 4-3 win over the Cupar Canucks. Keegan Ludwar, Scott Arnold, Justin Nychuk and Dayton Picard with a shorthanded winning goal scored for the Arrows. Godric Tham scored twice for the Canucks including a power play goal. Brett Boha also scored for Cupar. Aaron Husband picked up the win in net for the Arrows. Colby Miller was in net for the Canucks. Avonlea had six minor penalties and Cupar had five.

In Bethune on Saturday evening our Schultz Cup finalists from last year played for the second time this year. Bethune won the first game in Wynyard and looked to be on their way to their second win of season over Wynyard until the third period when the Monarchs overcame a two goal deficit and scored three times in the third period and once in overtime for a 6-5 win. Riley Storzuk led the way for the Monarchs with two goals in the third period and the overtime winner 3:26 into the extra frame.  Brett Leffler scored in the first period. Lyle Ostapowich and Robert Hillier scored on the power play for the Monarchs. Lucas Ulmer led the way for the Bulldogs with a pair of goals in the first period. Russ Nielson and Mike Reich also scored for the Bulldogs. Derek Fuchs scored on the power play for the Bulldogs. David Perkin moved to 3-0-0 in net for the Monarchs. Ryan Senft was in net for the Bulldogs. Bethune had six minor penalties while the Monarchs had two. Saturday evening ended five games in eight nights for the Monarchs that won four of those five games. In Cupar the Raymore Rockets kept rolling with their fourth win in a row with a 10-3 victory over the Canucks. The Rockets have outscored their opponents 31-9 through this streak. Chad Filteau and Todd MacMurchy led the way for the Rockets with two goals each. Davis Brown, Michael Jordan, Kyle Schmalenberg, Warren Bashutsky also scored for the Rockets. Travis Mohr and Jordan Reeve scored power play goals in the third period for Raymore. Dylan Mohr, Godric Tham and Travis Orr on the power play scored for the Canucks. Travis Bosch picked up his league leading sixth win in net for the Rockets. Colby Miller was in net for the Canucks. Cupar was assessed two minor penalties and the Raymore five. In Strasbourg the Lumsden Monarchs defeated the Strasbourg Maroons 6-2. There were eight different scorers in this game. Liam Brennan, Ward Szucki, Jared Adams, Andrew Perrault, Tyler Murray and Carter Selinger with the game’s only power play goal scored for Lumsden. Tyson Orban and Greg Ferguson scored for the Maroons. Kurtis Sollosy picked up the win in net for the Monarchs. Jeremy Ellis was in net for the Maroons. Lumsden had three minor penalties and Strasbourg had four.

Kyle Ross from Bethune has taken over the scoring lead with 13 goals and 8 assists for 21 points. Teammate Mike Reich is next with 7 goals and 13 assists for 20 points. Tyrell Shulko from the Rockets had a big week and has moved into third place with 13 goals and 4 assists. Jacob Ulmer from the Bulldogs is next with 16 points and Kyle Johnson from Lumsden rounds out the top five with 15 points. David Perkin (3-0-0) from Wynyard leads goalie GAA with a 1.96 average. Ryan Senft from the Bulldogs is next at 2.00 GAA and Travis Bosch (6-1-0) from the Rockets is next at 2.82. Bosch leads the league with 425 minutes played and leads league with six wins. Jared Adams from Lumsden, Greg Ferguson from Strasbourg and Tyrell Shulko from Raymore have three power play goals each. The Raymore Rockets continue to lead in special teams play. The Rockets have a 32.1% success rate on the power play and lead the league in that category. They are second in penalty kill at 83.3%. The Bethune Bulldogs are second in power play at 31.3% and the Lumsden Monarchs are third at 29.3%. The Wynyard Monarchs penalty kill unit leads league at 88.2%. After Raymore the Lumsden Monarchs are next at 77.1%.

There are five games left before the holiday break. On Friday evening the Cupar Canucks (1-5-0) are in Raymore to play the second place Rockets (6-1-0) at 8:00 p.m. and the Bethune Bulldogs (7-0-1) are in Wynyard to play the second place Monarchs (6-3-0) at 8:30 p.m. On Saturday evening the fourth place Lumsden Monarchs (5-2-1) are in Avonlea to play the Arrows (2-5-0), the Strasbourg Maroons (0-8-1) are in Bethune and the Wynyard Monarchs are in Cupar to play the Canucks.

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 

If you follow us on any portable device remember you have the option of the mobile view or the regular desktop view which you can change 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…just five games left before the end of the calendar year and we will be half way through the regular season schedule. Please get out to a game near you.

Gerry Tomkins

President - HHL