President's Update - November 14th, 2016

Bethune Bulldogs pick up where they left off...

The Bethune Bulldogs, our defending champions and the Provincial ‘A’ champions, coasted to a 13-2 victory over the Wynyard Monarchs on Saturday evening in Bethune to open up their season. Mark Lustig had four goals and three assists, Drew George had one goal and five assists, Derek Fuchs had two goals and three assists, Jacob Ulmer had one goal and four assists, Mike Reich had one goal and four assists and Russ Nielson had one goal and two assists. Fuchs and George each scored a power play goal. Carter Buffalo and Donovan Hall scored for Wynyard. Ryan Holfeld and Ryan Seibel split the game in net facing 28 shots for the Bulldogs and Adam Jordan was in net for the Monarchs facing 54 shots. The Monarchs had five minor penalties and the Bulldogs had one. Also on Saturday evening the Raymore Rockets played their first game of the year in Avonlea. The Rockets got two goals each from Tyrell Shulko and Cody Mapes and a goal from Emery Anderson in the first period to take a commanding 5-0 lead. The Arrows, coming off an overtime win against the Maroons the night before, responded with three goals in the second period with Brett Kealey scoring twice and Devin Cobbold scoring on the power play. In the third period Braden Bentz would score on the power play and Josh Jordan would score before Stuart Holland would score for the Arrows late in the period to make the final score 7-4 for the Rockets. David Perkin would pick up the win in net for the Rockets and Dean Brothen was in net for the Arrows. The Arrows had four minor penalties and the Rockets had two. Also on Saturday evening, the Lumsden Monarchs would pick up their second win of the year with a 7-3 victory over the Cupar Canucks. This game was tied 2-2 going into the third period and would stay that way through almost 13 minutes of the third period and then the Monarchs scored five goals in five minutes and nineteen seconds to put the game away. For the Monarchs Kyle Johnson had two goals and one assist, Dale Spelchen had one goal and three assists, Liam Brennan had a goal and an assist, Tyler Penny had a goal and an assist and Torrey Lindsey and Andrew Perrault also scored. Godric Tham scored twice for the Canucks and Brett Boha also scored. There were no special teams goals in this game. Will Hood picked up the win in net for the Monarchs and Colby Miller was in net for the Canucks. Each team had three minor penalties.

On Friday evening there were two games played in the League. In Wynyard, the Monarchs came back from a 5-4 deficit early in the third period to win 6-5. Eric Popadynec had a hat trick and an assist to lead the Monarchs scoring. Drew Litwin scored twice and had an assist and Dylan Shewchuk scored to round out the scoring for the Monarchs. Shewchuk and Popadynec each had a power play goal. Taylor Orr scored twice for the Canucks including a power play goal. Tyler Wilyman and Brett Boha also scored and Josh Lang had a power play goal. Adam Jordan picked up the win in net for the Monarchs and Colby Miller was in net for the Canucks. Both teams had eight minor penalties. In Strasbourg, Justin Nychuk and Devin Cobbold scored first to give the Arrows a 2-0 lead but the Maroons would get late first period goals from Tayler Balog and Mark Cross to tie the game going into the second period. Garret Lockeridge would score early in the second period to give the Maroons their first lead of the game. Devin Cobbold would then get his second goal of the game scoring the first shorthanded goal of the year to tie the game up again. Avonlea would then get the lead back with a goal from Jessie Hall but shortly after Tanner Exner would score on the power play and the game was tied 4-4 going into the third period. The Maroons would get the lead early in the third period with a goal from Sean Delwo and again the Arrows would tie the game midway through the third period with Jessie Hall picking up his second goal of the night. Stuart Holland would score four minutes into overtime and the Arrows would come out of Strasbourg with a 6-5 win. Dean Brothen faced 37 shots in the Arrow’s net and got the win and Tyler Kifferling was in net for the Maroons and faced 31 shots. The Arrows had three minor penalties and the Maroons had two.

This Friday evening the Cupar Canucks will be in Strasbourg, Bethune is in Lumsden and the Raymore Rockets will be in Wynyard for an 8:30 p.m. game. On Saturday evening Lumsden is in Raymore, Strasbourg is in Wynyard and Avonlea is in Cupar. Pocket schedules should be at your rink this weekend.

You can follow us on twitter http://twitter.com/HighwayHockey All of our tweets, which include updates from all games, appear on the front page just under the Upcoming Games column if you just want to follow us on the website during games. You can also follow my account the Pensky File http://twitter.com/GerladT

Thank you for supporting the Highway Hockey League and please get out to a game near you.

Gerry