President's Update - December 21st, 2015

On Friday evening in Raymore the Rockets had their hands full with the Cupar Canucks. Elliot Hubick scored just 1:21 into the first period to give the Canucks the lead. The Rockets would then get two goals from Tyrell Shulko and a goal from Cody Mapes to go up 3-1 after one period. The Canucks would tie the game early in the second period as Brett Boha would score twice including once on the power play. Nelson Davis would score immediately after Cupar’s third goal to retake the lead for the Rockets and then just 21 seconds later Donovan Chow would tie the game up again. That would be four goals in 4 minutes and 41 seconds and then no more scoring in the second period. Cupar would take their first lead of the game in the third period on a goal from Taylor Orr. With just under seven minutes left in the period Todd MacMurchy would score and this game went to overtime and then to a shootout. Tyrell Shulko would score the winner in the shoot out and the Rockets would extend their winning streak to five games with a 6-5 victory. Anthony Bergen picked up his first win of the year in net for the Rockets. Colby Miller picked up a point in the shootout loss for the Canucks. The Rockets had eight minor penalties and the Canucks had six. Also on Friday evening the Wynyard Monarchs defeated the Bethune Bulldogs 4-3 in overtime in Wynyard.  The Monarchs got two goals from Chad Mazurak, including one on the power play, and goals from Lyle Ostapowich and Dale Spelchen with the game winner with just 21 seconds left in overtime. Bethune got power play goals from Jacob Ulmer and Derek Fuchs and a goal from Carson Sinclair. David Perkin picked up his fourth win of the year in net for the Monarchs and Ryan Senft was in net for the Bulldogs. The Bulldogs were assessed eight minor penalties and a misconduct. The Monarchs had nine minor penalties, a misconduct and a major with a game misconduct. As a result of the game misconduct in the third period Brett Leffler was suspended one game.

On Saturday evening the Lumsden Monarchs scored four times in the first period and went on to a 7-4 victory over the Avonlea Arrows in Avonlea. Kyle Johnson led the way for the Monarchs with a hat trick that included a shorthanded goal that proved to be the winning goal. Zak Anderson scored twice for the Monarchs and Andrew Perrault and Ben Findlay also scored.  The Arrows got scoring from Josh Jelinski, Stuart Holland, Calvin Watson and a power play goal from Tyler Howatt. Will Hood was in net for the win for the Monarchs and Dean Brother was in net for the Arrows. Each team had six minor penalties. In Cupar the Wynyard Monarchs had a 3-0 lead early in the second period and held on for a 5-4 victory over the Cupar Canucks. The Monarchs first three goals were scored by Nowell Greasley, Dylan Bentz and Brent Plouffe. The final two goals were both scored shorthanded. Donovan Hall scored late in the second period and Joey MacDonald scored what would end up the winning goal midway through the third frame.  The Canucks scoring came from Brett Boha with a power play goal, Taylor Orr with a shorthanded goal and goals from Devin Stecyk and Ryan Branton. The last three goals scored in this game were all shorthanded goals. David Perkin improved to 5-0-0 in the Wynyard net and Tanner Kehler was in net for Cupar. The Canucks had seven minor penalties, a major and a game misconduct. The Monarchs had five minor penalties, one major penalty, two game misconducts and two game misconducts. The Bethune Bulldogs improved to 8-0-2 on Saturday evening with a 12-2 victory over the Strasbourg Maroons.  Three players had multiple goal nights…Lucas Ulmer had three goals, including one power play goal, and two assists; Kyle Ross had two goals and three assists and Mike Reich had two goals and two assists. Mitch Boucher, Dustin MacAngus, Drew George and Russ Nielsen with a power play goal also scored for the Bulldogs. Donovan Thompson and Tyson Orban each scored for the Maroons. Ryan Seibel picked up the win in net for Bethune and Tyler Kifferling was in net for Strasbourg. Bethune had three minor penalties while Strasbourg had six minor penalties, a major penalty and a game misconduct. Strasbourg’s Quinn McIntosh has been suspended one game.

Kyle Ross from the Bulldogs continues to lead the scoring race with a league leading 15 goals and 11 assists for 26 points. Teammate Mike Reich is next with 9 goals and a league leading 16 assists for 25 points. Jacob Ulmer from the Bulldogs rounds out the top three with 20 points. Tyrell Shulko from the Rockets and Kyle Johnson from the Lumsden Monarchs are next with 19 points each. Bulldogs Lucas Ulmer, Russ Nielson; Brett Leffler and Riley Storzuk from Wynyard and Carter Selinger from the Lumsden Monarchs round out the top ten in scoring. Dale Spelchen from Wynyard leads all scorers with three game winning goals. Jared Adams from Lumsden, Tyrell Shulko from Raymore and Greg Ferguson from Strasbourg lead all scorers with three power play goals each. Ryan Seibel (4-0-0) from the Bulldogs leads all goalies with a 2.00 GAA. He is followed by David Perkin (5-0-0) from Wynyard at 2.53 and Travis Bosch (6-1-0) from Raymore at 2.82. Bosch has played the most minutes in the league at 425. Team Goaltending is tight with Bethune at 3.03 and Raymore at 3.06 and Wynyard at 3.41. In Team statistics, the Bethune Bulldogs have the top power play scoring percentage at 3.1%. They are followed by Raymore at 28.2% and Lumsden at 26.7%. The top penalty killing squad would be the Wynyard Monarchs at 84.8%. They are followed by Raymore at 83.3% and Avonlea at 79.2%. Here is an interesting statistic. We are half way through the season and so far this year our total home records and away records are the same with 16 wins. Home is 16-14-2 and away is 16-13-3!

We are officially at the halfway point of the season. Our first game back from the holidays will be Wednesday January 6^th. We will have a President’s Update at the start of January to look at our last half of the season and update on Provincials that will start for some in January. Perhaps I will do a survey a la Richard Dreyfus in Let It Ride…and get the real public analytics of things.

On behalf of our executive, the management/coaches/volunteers and the players in our league we wish a very Merry Christmas to all of you great senior hockey fans. We look forward to seeing all of you at the rink in January!

Gerry Tomkins

President – Highway Hockey League