President's Update - November 28th, 2016

The Bethune Bulldogs defeated the Strasbourg Maroons on Friday evening 8-2 in Strasbourg and defeated the Cupar Canucks 11-7 on Saturday evening to move to 4-0-0 and in a tie for first place with the Lumsden Monarchs who are at 4-1-0. In Strasbourg the Bulldogs were up 3-1 after the first and second periods and then scored five times in the third period. At home Saturday evening the Canucks had a 3-2 lead going into the second period getting goals from Matthew Boha, Devin Stecyk and Godric Tham. Russ Neilson scored twice for the Bulldogs in the first period. In the second period the Bulldogs scored four times as Jacob Ulmer scored twice and Kyle Ross and Drew George scored. Cody Hall scored the lone goal for the Canucks and it was 6-4 for Bethune going into the third period. In the third period Godric Tham scored the only power play goal of the game early to get the Canucks to within one goal but Kyle Ross would score his second goal of the game quickly to restore the two goal lead. Paul Albers would then score a shorthanded goal and that was followed by goals from Drew George and the hat trick goal from Kyle Ross and the Bulldogs led 10-5. Godric Tham would then score his hat trick goal and Tyler Wilyman would score but that would be it as Matt Delahey would score late to make the final 11-7. Ryan Seibel stopped 24 shots in the Bethune to pick up the win. Colby Miller stopped 50 shots in the Cupar net. Each team had five minor penalties.

Also on Saturday evening the Wynyard Monarchs came back from a 2-0 deficit after the first period to defeat the Avonlea Arrows 5-2. Cody Straker led the way for the Monarchs with two goals including a power play goal. Donovan Hall, Eric Popadynec and Brendan Reiss rounded out the scoring for Wynyard. Brett Kealey scored both goals for the Arrows including a power play goal. Adam Jordan picked up the win in net for the Monarchs and Dean Brothen was in net for the Arrows. Avonlea was assessed four minor penalties and Wynyard had three. In Lumsden it was Wall of Fame night for the Monarchs. Fans were treated to an excellent game. The first period was spent mostly in the Maroons zone as Strasbourg was outshot 18-4 but it was Greg Ferguson that scored first for the Maroons five minutes into the first. The Monarchs tied it up with 25 seconds left in the period on a goal from Liam Brennan. In the second period the Monarchs again outshot the Maroons, this time by a margin of 20-14 and scored three times with Brennan getting his second goal of the game and Kyle Johnson and Dale Spelchen also scoring. The Maroons scored with 29 seconds left in period when Sean Delwo scored. In the third period the Maroons got a goal from Tayler Balog to get within one but Kyle Johnson would answer that for the Monarchs and the final score was 5-3. Each team had one penalty in each period. Matt Weninger picked up the win in net for the Monarchs stopping 27 of 30 shots sent his way. Jeremy Ellis stopped 46 of 51 shots fired his way for the Maroons

On Tuesday evening the Maroons will be in Bethune. On Friday the Maroons will be in Avonlea and Bethune will be in Raymore to play the Rockets. There are three games on Saturday evening. Wynyard is in Cupar, Lumsden is in Strasbourg and Bethune hosts the Avonlea Arrows.
Statistic updates will be a bit late this week but will get posted.

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/GeraldT

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

Gerry