President's Update - January 25th, 2016

Submitted by Gerry on Sun, 05/13/2018 - 03:25

Bethune continues to lead HHL standings with Raymore and Lumsden close behind…the Bethune Bulldogs (12-1-2) lost their first game in regulation this season to the Raymore Rockets last Wednesday evening in Raymore 9-1 but bounced back with an 8-2 victory over the Cupar Canucks in Cupar on Friday evening. Against Cupar Shea Van Luven led the way with a hat trick and Drew George scored twice for the Bulldogs. Donovan Chow and Cody Hall scored for the Canucks. Ryan Seibel picked up the win in net for the Bulldogs and Colby Miller was in net for the Canucks. Cupar had seven minor penalties and Bethune had five. The Raymore Rockets (12-2-1) finished their week off in league play with an 8-2 win over the Strasbourg Maroons (2-13-1). This is the fourth straight win for the Rockets since losing in a shootout to the Lumsden Monarchs earlier this month. Jordan Reeve and Tyrell Shulko led the way for the Rockets in this game with two goals each. Chad Filteau, Davis Brown, Josh Jordan and Shane Flaman also scored for the Rockets. Greg Ferguson and Donovan Thompson scored for the Maroons. Travis Bosch picked up the win in net for the Rockets and Tyler Kifferling was in net for the Maroons. Raymore was assessed four minor penalties and a fighting major while Strasbourg had six minor penalties, a fighting major and two misconducts. Braden Bentz from the Rockets and Larry Dohm from the Maroons each received a game misconduct.

On Saturday evening two games were played. The Avonlea Arrows (3-10-1) defeated the Cupar Canucks (3-10-1) 3-0. Aaron Husband from the Arrows picked up his first HHL shutout for the win. Tanner Kehler from the Canucks also had a good game allowing just two goals. Kyle Oleniuk, Tyler Howatt and Devin Cobbold scored for the Arrows. The Arrows had six minor penalties and the Canucks had five. Each team was assessed a fighting major. In Wynyard, The northern Monarchs (10-6-0) got goals from Dillon Shewchuk, Brett Leffler, Jordan Karakochuk and Riley Storzuk to take a 4-1 lead into the second period against Lumsden (10-2-2). Lumsden’s first period goal was scored by Andrew Perrault on the power play. In the second period Lumsden got goals from Denby Haysom, Liam Brennan shorthanded and Kyle Johnson on the power play to tie the game up going into the third period. In the third period Brett Leffler scored his second goal of the evening to give the lead back to Wynyard. Ward Szucki and Kyle Johnson with his second goal of the evening would give Lumsden their first lead of the night. Leffler would complete the hat trick to tie the game up again with nine minutes left in the game. Ward Szucki would score his second goal of the evening on the power play to give Lumsden the lead back. Brady Aulie and Zak Anderson would finish the scoring for Lumsden to give them a 9-6 victory. Aaron Schweitzer picked up his second HHL victory in net for Lumsden and Kevin Orthner was in net for Wynyard. Wynyard had seven minor penalties and Lumsden had five. With this loss, Wynyard will finish the regular season in either third or fourth place.

Good start in Provincials….The Raymore Rockets defeated the Balgonie Bisons 7-5 in Raymore on Saturday evening to take a 1-0 lead in their best of three series. Game two of this series is on Friday evening in Balgonie at 8:30. If a third game is required it will be played on Monday in Raymore. This past Sunday there were three more Provincial ‘A’ games played. In Grenfell, the Lumsden Monarchs defeated the Grenfell Spitfires 4-3 to take game one in their series. Game two of this series is Friday evening in Lumsden at 8:00 p.m. If a third game is required it will be played at 6:00 p.m. on Sunday in Grenfell. In Hague, the Wynyard Monarchs defeated the Hague Royals 7-4 and will play game two of that series on Wednesday evening in Wynyard at 8:30 p.m. If a third game is required in that series it will be played on Sunday afternoon in Hague. In Avonlea, the Arrows had a 3-0 lead in the first period and the Balcarres Broncs scored four goals in the second and won game one of this series 4-3. Game two of this series is in Balcarres on Sunday evening at 7:30 p.m. If a third game is required it will be played Monday evening in Avonlea. The Bethune Bulldogs play the Watrous Winterhawks in Bethune on Friday evening at 8:00 p.m. in game one of this series. Game two is Sunday at 5:00 p.m. in Watrous and if a third game is required it will be played Monday evening in Bethune. The Strasbourg Maroons play their first game against Gull Lake on February 26th in Provincial ‘C’ and the Cupar Canucks play their first game in Provincial ‘D’ on February 7th in Cupar against Redvers.

Kyle Ross continues to lead HHL scoring race…Kyle Ross from Bethune leads our scoring race with 21 goals and 19 assists and 40 points. Tyrell Shulko from Raymore leads the league in goals with 27 and is second with 35 points. Tied with him is Kyle Johnson from Lumsden. Mike Reich from Bethune is fourth with 33 points and Brett Leffler from Wynyard is fifth with 30 points. Rounding out the top ten are Andrew Perrault from Lumsden, Josh Jordan from Raymore, Riley Storzuk from Wynyard and Chad Filteau from Raymore. There are four players tied for tenth. Shulko is also tied with Dale Spelchen from Wynyard with three game winning goals and is tied with Andrew Perrault from Lumsden with four power play goals. Zak Anderson from Lumsden and Dayton Picard from Avonlea each have two shorthanded goals. Travis Bosch from the Rockets leads all goalies with a 2.96GAA, with11 wins and with 850 minutes played. Ryan Senft from Bethune is next with a 3.45 GAA. Raymore leads team goaltending with a 3.08 GAA followed by Bethune at 3.53 GAA. The Lumsden Monarchs continue to lead team special team play at 113.0. They are followed by Raymore at 105.1 Lumsden continues to lead penalty killing at 82.9% and they are followed by Raymore at 79.4% and Cupar at 78.7%. The top power play in the league belongs to Lumsden with a 30.1% success rate. They are followed by the Bethune Bulldogs at 27.1% and the Raymore Rockets at 25.8%.

Our Player archives have been updated. Although the league has been in existence for fifty years we only have complete statistics from 1989. There is a new classification shown under the archives tab called top performers. This will show you best seasons in a season and in a career in goaltending and in points scored and seasons played. There is some very interesting information here….who has played most games in history in the HHL?...most seasons?...most playoff games?....what goalie has played the most minutes in history and what current goalie is on pace to perhaps claim that title? we are also showing team totals....which team has scored the most goals in league history?

You will note that three games have been moved as a result of Provincials. One game has been rescheduled and the other two soon will be. Your league schedule for this weekend has Strasbourg at Cupar on Friday evening and Lumsden in Raymore and Cupar in Wynyard on Saturday evening. The Bethune at Lumsden game from Friday night will now be played on Tuesday, February 1st. The Avonlea at Raymore game from Friday night and Strasbourg at Avonlea game from Saturday evening will be rescheduled.

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 

I apologize to any that encountered an additional website coming up when you were surfing through our site. We believe this has been resolved as our website has been moved to a different server. If you encounter any problems please clean your cache and refresh and if you are still having problems please let me know. 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 Highway Hockey League… With Provincials going there is even more hockey for you to enjoy, please get out to a game near you.

Gerry Tomkins

President – Highway Hockey League