President's Update - March 8th, 2013

Semi-Finals in the Highway Hockey League started this past week. Cupar and Strasbourg played on Monday evening after cancelling their game on Sunday evening due to the weather conditions. Cupar scored early and often on their way to a 12-3 first game victory. Kyle Ross had three goals and in that total was another shorthanded goal, Ryan Bahan had two goals and two assists and one of his goals was scored shorthanded, Tyler Stewart had two goals (1-PPG) and Shea Van Luven had two goals. Rounding out the scoring were Jaret Eberle with a goal and three assists, Justin Bernhardt with a goal and two assists and Donovan Chow with a goal. Jamie Wutke picked up the win in net for the Canucks. Tanner Exner, Branden Sentes and Quinn McIntosh replied for the Maroons. The Canucks had seven minor penalties, a major penalty, misconduct and a game misconduct. The Maroons had four minor penalties.  The Canucks are now 13-0-0 at home in HHL games and if you add in Provincials they are 18-0-0 for season. UPDATE: Cupar wins game two 5-2.  Game three is in Cupar on Sunday at 7:30 p.m.

The Bethune Bulldogs have a two games to one lead in their series with Wynyard. The numbers thus far in three games….35 goals scored, 61 minor penalties, 9 misconducts, 2 major penalties and 2 game misconducts. For the record they had 18 goals, 34 minor penalties and a misconduct in their two regular season games. Both teams play Provincial games this weekend and will play game four of their series in Bethune on Wednesday evening.  Game one last Sunday saw Bethune take a 6-0 lead after two periods and hold on for the 6-5 victory. Mike Reich had two goals (1-PPG). Other goals came from Dustin McAngus and Jacob Ulmer with power play goals and Tyler Dobrescu and Lucas Ulmer with even strength goals. Wynyard’s five goals all came in the third period with Bryan Kauk getting two goals and Chad Mazurak picking up a hat trick. Two of Mazurak’s goals came on the power play and two of his goals came in the last 1:02 of play. Kevin Hasset picked up the win in net for the Bulldogs. On Tuesday evening the Wynyard Monarchs defeated the Bethune Bulldogs 6-1 in Bethune. The League’s regular season scoring leader, Brett Leffler, scored four times including three times on the power play. Jordan Karakochuk scored twice for the Monarchs. Defenceman Joel Kot picked up the Bulldog’s only goal on the power play. Dave Perkin picked up the win in net for the Monarchs. Game three was the next evening in Wynyard. Again the visiting team won this game with the Bulldogs winning 11-5. Once again a big first period in Wynyard for Bethune as they took a 5-2 lead. They led 6-4 after two periods. Mike Reich had three goals (1-PPG) and five assists for the Bulldogs. Jacob Ulmer had three goals and two assists. Also scoring for Bethune were Dustin McAngus with a power play goal, Joel Kot, Lucas Ulmer, Tyler Dobrescu with a power play goal and Tory Willfong with the game winner. Donovan Hall scored twice for the Monarchs. Also scoring for Wynyard were Bryan Kauk, Brett Leffler, Derek Halldorson and Dale Spelchen. The visitors own this series much like the Bethune/Raymore series. The Bulldogs are now 5-6-3 at home this year and are 11-3-0 on the road. Wynyard is 10-4-0 at home and are 9-2-1 on the road.

All Star selections are out and I will have them all published here over the next week. Here are the MVP nominations and the Rookie of the Year nominations.

Here are the Most Valuable Player nominations:

Avonlea               Shay Neufeld

Bethune              Dustin McAngus

Cupar                   Kyle Ross

Lumsden             Lance Morrison

Raymore              Josh Belair

Southey               Pat Thompson-Gale

Strasbourg          Brady Heintz

Wynyard              Brett Leffler

Most Valuable Player (Local):

Avonlea               James Ardelan

Bethune              Ryan Seibel

Cupar                   Justin Schulhauser

Lumsden             Jesse Matlock

Raymore              Josh Jordan

Southey               Pat Thompson-Gale

Strasbourg          Brady Heintz

Wynyard              Brett Leffler

Rookie of the Year:

Avonlea                Josh Jelinski

Cupar                    Jordan Pratt

Lumsden              Matt Hood

Raymore              Cole Bentz

Southey               Elliott Hubick

Wynyard              Eric Popadynec

Provincial Update:

The Cupar Canucks defeated the Lumsden Monarchs two games to none to advance to the Provincial ‘A’ final. The Canucks will play the winner of the Bruno T-Birds versus Wynyard Monarchs series. Wynyard won game one of that series and plays game two on Sunday afternoon in Bruno. If a game three is required it will be played Monday evening in Wynyard.

The Avonlea Arrows defeated the Bethune Bulldogs 9-7 on Saturday evening in Bethune. It was an interesting game….UPDATE: Bethune wins game two 3-2 in overtime...Game three will be played on Sunday afternoon at $;00 p.m. in Bethune.

All Provincial results are listed under our ‘Provincials’ tab at the top of the page.

Playoff statistics are available for view under the “Statistics’ tab.

This weekend we have playoff games in Strasbourg on Saturday evening and in Cupar Sunday afternoon. You can see a Provincial game in Avonlea on Saturday evening and the Wynyard Monarchs are in Bruno on Sunday afternoon. If Bethune forces a game three in their series with Avonlea, game three will be in Bethune at 4 p.m. on Sunday afternoon in Bethune. Please get out to see a game near you and we will see you at the rink.

Gerry Tomkins

HHL President

Keep current on HHL games and HHL teams playing in Provincials on Twitter by using either or both of the following accounts…

http://twitter.com/GeraldT and from our new account http://twitter.com/highwayhockey