President's Update - November 21st, 2016

Maroons win two games on weekend….

The Strasbourg Maroons defeated the Cupar Canucks at home on Friday evening 9-5 and upended the Wynyard Monarchs in Wynyard Saturday evening 6-4 to up their record to 2-0-1. On Friday evening Cupar got goals from Brayden Frank, Travis Orr and Kyle hill on the power play to take a 3-0 lead into the second period. The Maroons woke up in the second period and proceeded to score eight goals including two power play goals to take an 8-3 lead going into the final frame. Greg Ferguson scored three times in the period for the Maroons. Tye Exner, Dylan Marcott and Mark Cross would also score. Eric Schultz and Garret Lockeridge would score on the power play. Mark Cross would complete the hat trick with two goals in the third period while Cody Hall and Dylan Mohr would complete the scoring for the Canucks. Tyler Kifferling would pick up the win in the net for the Maroons. Colby Miller and Tanner Kehler split time in the Canucks net. The Canucks had two minor penalties, two major penalties and a game misconduct. The Maroons had eleven minor penalties, one major penalty, one misconduct and two game misconducts. Dillan Hubick (GM last 10 minutes) and Rhett Sandercock (Instigator) from the Maroons received one game suspensions and Taylor Orr received a three game suspension (Match) from this game. On Saturday evening the Maroons were in Wynyard. Kyle Kinequon scored for Wynyard and it was 1-0 after one period. In the second period Carter Buffalo put the Monarchs up 2-0 but Strasbourg would roar back with four goals as Mark Cross would score twice and Tayler Balog and Dylan Marcott would score on the power play before Jordan Karakochuk would score on the power play for the Monarchs and it was 4-3 Strasbourg going into the third period. In the third Donovan Thompson would score to give the Maroons a two goal lead but Eric Popadynec would score to get the Monarchs to within one before Sean Delwo would score late to give the Maroons a 6-4 victory. Jeremy Ellis picked up the win for the Maroons and Adam Jordan was in net for the Monarchs. Strasbourg had four minor penalties and Wynyard had five. The Maroons now have a big weekend hosting the Bethune Bulldogs (2-0-0) on Friday evening and going to Lumsden on Saturday evening to play the Monarchs (3-1-0).

Also on Saturday evening the Bethune Bulldogs scored three times in the third period to break a 2-2 tie and go on to a 5-2 victory over the Lumsden Monarchs. Scoring for the Bulldogs were Drew George with two goals and goals from Kyle Ross, Paul Albers and Mike Reich. Reich and George had power play goals. Liam Brennan and Torrey Lindsey with a power play goal scored for Lumsden. Matt Weninger stopped 31 of 36 shots in the Lumsden net and Ryan Holfeld picked up the win in the Bulldogs net stopping 34 of 36 shots fired his way. Lumsden was assessed five minor penalties, one double minor penalty and a game misconduct. Bethune had four minor penalties plus a major penalty with a game misconduct. Carson Sinclair was assessed a one game suspension after this game (GM last 10 minutes). Also on Friday evening the Raymore Rockets defeated the Wynyard Monarchs in Wynyard 6-4. Raymore took a 3-0 lead in the first period on goals from Bryan McNabb, Brent Becker and a shorthanded tally from Michael Jordan. In the second period Wynyard got a goal from Austin Hilts and a power play goal from Cody Straker to get within one goal but Mason Nedjelski would score to make it 4-2. Carter Buffalo would then score to get the Monarchs to within one goal. Raymore would make it 5-3 going into the third period with their second shorthanded goal of the evening off the stick of Michael Jordan. Cody Mapes would score a power play goal for the Rockets early in the third period and then right after that Cody Straker would get his second power play goal for the Monarchs but that would be the end of the scoring and the final was 6-4 Rockets. Riley Focht-Gabriel picked up the win in net for the Rockets and Adam Jordan was in net for the Monarchs. Wynyard had nine minor penalties, one major penalty, one misconduct and a game misconduct. The Rockets had eleven minor penalties, two misconducts and three game misconducts. This was the third game of the evening that had suspensions given out…perhaps it was the supermoon this week. Brendan Reiss from the Monarchs was given a one game suspension (Instigator). For the Rockets Travis Mohr received a one game suspension (CTH major) and Kyle Schmalenberg received a one game suspension (multiple GMs).

There were two more games played Saturday evening. The Lumsden Monarchs bounced back from their defeat Friday evening to defeat the Raymore Rockets 5-4 in Raymore. The Rockets got goals from Mason Nedjelski and Davis Brown in the first period before Jordan Pratt would score for the Monarchs and it was 2-1 going into second period. Braeden Raiwet and Brady Aulie with a power play goal would give the Monarchs the lead before Bradyn Melrose would score and it was 3-3 going into the third period. In the third period Torrey Lindsey would score his league leading third power play goal to give the Monarchs a 4-3 lead. Andrew Perrault would then score for the Monarchs to make it 5-3 before Cody Mapes would score to make the final 5-4 Lumsden. Matt Weninger would pick up the win in net for the Monarchs and David Perkin was in net for the Rockets. The Monarchs had five minor penalties and the Rockets had eight. In Cupar the Avonlea Arrows played their only game of the weekend in Cupar and defeated the Canucks 5-3. The Arrows led throughout this game thanks to four goals scored in the first period. Five different players scored for the Arrows. Josh Jelinski, Mike Miller and Jesse Hall had even strength goals for the Arrows. Kyle Oleniuk and James Dombowsky each had a power play goal. The Canucks got power play goals from Brayden Frank and Donovan Chow. Travis Orr scored the other Canucks goal. Jesse Gooding picked up the win in net for the Arrows and Tanner Kehler was in net for the Canucks. The Arrows had three minor penalties, a major penalty and a game misconduct. The Canucks had four minor penalties, one major penalty, one misconduct and two game misconducts. Travis Orr received a one game suspension from this game (GM last 10 minutes).

It is early in the season but we have a pair of Maroons leading the scoring race. Mark Cross has 5 goals and 6 assists for 11 points and Greg Ferguson has 3 goals and 8 assists for 11 points. Eric Popadynec from Wynyard, Drew George from Bethune and Michael Jordan round out the top five with eight points each. Ryan Holfeld from the Bulldogs has the early goaltending lead with a 2-0 record and a 1.96 GAA. Strasbourg (2-0-1) hosts the Bethune Bulldogs (2-0-0) on Friday evening. On Saturday evening we have three games. Avonlea (2-1-0) is in Wynyard (1-3-0), Cupar (0-5-0) is in Bethune and Strasbourg will be in Lumsden to play the Monarchs (3-1-0) in their annual Wall of Fame game. The Monarchs are honouring Brad Duncan who was the league’s rookie of the year in 1978 and an all-star in 1984-85. Brad was also part of two Provincial Championship teams in Lumsden in 1978 and 1979. Our records only go back 30 years so I don’t have all of Brad’s stats. The Monarchs are also honouring Casey Lawford who played 14 seasons in our league. Casey was part of three Monarch HHL championship teams and part of the 1998 Provincial ‘B’ Championship team. Casey played 335 regular season and playoff games in 14 seasons. He had 128 goals, 160 assists, 288 points and 728 minutes in penalties. Casey also was the HHL Coach of the year in 2010.

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