President's Update - February 13th, 2017

Lumsden Monarchs move on to league semi-finals….Raymore and Lumsden advance in Provincials…League Awards…The Lumsden Monarchs defeated the Wynyard Monarchs 6-1 last Tuesday in Lumsden and then defeated Wynyard 7-3 in Wynyard to move on to the league semi-finals. On Tuesday the Monarchs got most of their scoring from one line as Kyle Johnson had a hat trick and Torrey Lindsay scored twice to lead the way. The Monarchs other goal came off the stick of Jared Adams with that goal being the game winner. It was a five point night for Lindsay and a four point night for Johnson. Liam Brennan had two assists. Wynyard got their only goal on the power play in the third period from Drew Litwin. Will Hood put aside 28 shots in the Lumsden net for the win and Adam Jordan stopped 44 shots in the Wynyard net. Lumsden had five minor penalties and Wynyard had one. On Friday evening in Wynyard, Tyler Penny and Liam Brennan scored for Lumsden in the first period and Nowell Greasley and Drew Litwin with a power play goal scored for Wynyard so it was 2-2 going into the second period. Tyler Penny scored his second goal of the evening on the power play in the second period to give Lumsden a 3-2 lead. In the third period Lumsden got power play goals from Liam Brennan and Austin Preete. Torey Lindsey and Tyler Penny with his third goal also scored for Lumsden. Eric Popadynec scored the lone goal for Wynyard in the third period. Matt Weninger picked up the win in net for Lumsden and Adam Jordan was in net for Wynyard. Wynyard had nine minor penalties, one major penalty and a game misconduct. Lumsden received four minor penalties, a major and a game misconduct. Lumsden now is in the second seed for the semi-finals and waits for the other series to be completed.

The Strasbourg Maroons opened up their best of three series against the Avonlea Arrows on Friday evening in Strasbourg with an 8-2 victory. Greg Ferguson had two goals and two assists and Tanner Exner had two goals to lead the way for the Maroons. Mark Cross had a goal and three assists. Also scoring for Strasbourg were Garret Johnson, Tyson Orban and Rhett Sandercock. Orban and Ferguson both scored on the power play. Avonlea got goals from Stuart Holland and James Dombowsky. Jeremy Ellis stopped 25 shots to pick up win in Maroon’s net and Jesse Gooding was in the Arrow’s net. Game two of this series is on Wednesday in Avonlea. The Raymore Rockets defeated the Cupar Canucks in the opening game of their series with a 5-3 victory last Wednesday evening in Raymore. The Rockets built up a 4-0 lead early in the second period on goals from Cody Mapes on the power play, Cole Melrose, Braden Bentz and Josh Belair. The Canucks would then score three times in a row. Donovan Chow scored on the power play and Travis Orr scored to make it 4-2 going into the third period. Brett Boha would score to make it 4-3 but with four minutes left in the game Mason Nedjelski would score for the Rockets and the game ended 5-3. The Rockets were assessed four minor penalties while the Canucks had five minor penalties and one misconduct. David Perkin picked up the win in net for the Rockets and Colby Miller was in net for the Canucks. Game two of this series is on Wednesday.

Lumsden Monarchs and Raymore Rockets advance in Provincials…The Lumsden Monarchs defeated the Leroy Braves on Saturday evening in Lumsden 9-2 and have advanced to the next round of the provincial ‘A’ draw winning the series 2-0. They will now play the Balgonie Bisons of the Qu’Appelle Valley Hockey League. The Bisons defeated the Avonlea Arrows in Avonlea on Saturday evening 8-4 and swept the Arrows 2-0. The Raymore Rockets defeated the Drake Canucks on Saturday evening in Raymore and won their second Provincial ‘C’ series of the year 5-3 in the two game total point series. The Rockets will now play the Ochapowace Thunder of the Triangle Hockey League. The Cupar Canucks were defeated 5-1 on Saturday evening in Provincial ‘D’ action against the Bredenbury Cougars. The Canucks lost the series 10-2 and are eliminated. The Bethune Bulldogs play the Milestone Flyers in Provincial ‘A’ round two. The winner of this series plays the winner of the Lumsden/Balgonie series. Dates for these two series will be announced shortly.

2017 League Awards….Voting is now happening for League awards. Nominees for League MVP include Jessie Hall of the Avonlea Arrows, Kyle Ross from the Bethune Bulldogs, Cody Hall from the Cupar Canucks, Andrew Perrault from the Lumsden Monarchs, Jordan Reeve from the Raymore Rockets, Mark Cross from the Strasbourg Maroons and Cody Straker from the Wynyard Monarchs. Nominees for the Eckdahl-Jenkins Memorial Trophy for the top local MVP are Josh Jelinski from Avonlea, Matt Delahey from Bethune, Brayden Frank from Cupar, Liam Brennan from Lumsden, Josh Jordan from Raymore, Mark Cross from Strasbourg and Cody Straker from Wynyard. Players nominated for the Stats-Van Trott rookie of the year honours include Brett Kealey from Avonlea, Mathew Scott from Cupar, Riley Focht-Gabriel from Raymore, Bryce Hubick from Strasbourg and Kyle Kinequon from Wynyard. Teams vote for the Ken Hale Manager of the Year award, the Lynwood Millar Coach of the Year award and an all-star team. Teams also vote for the Most Sportsmanlike Player trophy but this is done differently than the regular voting. There are no nominees as with this award each team submits a name of a player from another team for this trophy. Surprisingly we usually have a clear cut winner from the seven votes….usually. The Tyson Sievert HHL Scoring Trophy has been won by Kyle Ross of Bethune. The League Pennant trophy will be awarded to the Bethune Bulldogs. The Gunnar Lindal Memorial Trophy for Team Goaltending will be presented to Ryan Holfeld and Ryan Seibel from the Bethune Bulldogs. Winners will be announced in March and awards will be presented either at a playoff game or at team’s windups.

Provincial Schedules are listed under the Provincials tab and league playoff series are under the Schedule tab. 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 this is the best time of the season…Provincials and league playoffs are in full flight…please get out to a game near you…

Gerry