President's Update November 25th, 2013

On Friday evening all teams were in action in the HHL. In Raymore, The Bethune Bulldogs won their third game of the year by scoring a shorthanded goal midway through the third period to clinch the win 3-2 over the Rockets. Tyler Dobrescu scored what would end up being the winner. Raymore came back to tie this game twice. Lucas Ulmer got the Bulldogs on the board in the first and Tyrell Shulko would answer that later in the period. In the second period Jens Johnson would score on the power play to give the Bulldogs a 2-1 lead going into the third period. Shulko would tie the game for the Rockets early in the third period before Dobrescu would score to make the final 3-2 for Bethune.  Each team had four minor penalties…interesting enough was the fact that there wasn’t a duplicate call within the eight penalties….so eight different penalties….Ryan Seibel picked up the win in net for the Bulldogs and John Arscott was in net for the Rockets.

In Avonlea, the Arrows scored four goals, including two power play goals, in the first period to power their way to a 7-3 victory over the Cupar Canucks. 2013 League MVP Shay Neufeld scored twice in the first period, once on the power play, and added an assist to lead the way for the Arrows. Calvin Watson scored on the power play and James Ardelan scored the first of two goals he scored in this game to complete the first period scoring. Layton Ludwar and Mark Jelenski with a power play goal would score in the third period to complete the Arrows scoring. Jaret Eberle scored twice for the Canucks in the second period, once on the power play, and Donovan Chow scored shorthanded for the Canucks in the first period. The Canucks had eight minor penalties, two misconducts and a game misconduct. The Arrows had nine minor penalties. Nathan Fischl picked up his first win in net as an Arrow and Jamie Wutke was in net for the Canucks.

A bit of a wild one in Strasbourg saw the Lumsden Monarchs win their third game in a row with a 7-6 shootout win over the Strasbourg Maroons. It certainly didn’t look like the Monarchs would be in the position to win early in this game as the Maroons scored five goals in the first six minutes of the game. The Monarchs scored three times in the first six and a half minutes so it was 5-3 early in this game.  Brady Heintz, Jory Millar with two goals and Derek Edwards got the Maroons early markers while Miguel Pereira and Jesse Matlock with two goals scored for the Monarchs. The Monarchs pulled Trevor Thiessen after Maroons goal four and put Will Hood in net.  Heintz would quickly get his second goal of the game to make it 5-3. There was no more scoring until the second period. Lance Morrison on the power play and David Fisher even strength would score to make the game 5-5 going into the third period. With just over two minutes left in the game Russ Neilson would give the Monarchs their first lead of the game. With goalie Kifferling pulled, the Maroons tied the game up with forty-four seconds left. Overtime solved nothing and Brady Aulie from the Monarchs would be the only shooter that scored to give the Monarchs the win. The Monarchs had two minor penalties and the Maroons had five minor penalties and a misconduct.

In Wynyard, the northern Monarchs won their third game of the year with a 9-5 win over the Southey Marlins. Wynyard was up 8-0 before the Marlins scored their first goal in the second period.  Donovan Hall scored twice on the power play and Bryan Kauk scored twice to lead the way for the Monarchs. Sam Gudnason, Brett Leffler (SHG), Eric Popadynec, Jordan Karakochuk and Mike Anderson rounded out the scoring for the Monarchs. Elliot Hubick scored twice for the Marlins, including a power play goal, with the balance of the scoring coming from Pat Thompson-Gale and power play goals from Shay Wirll and Dominic Perrault. David Perkin picked up the win in net for the Monarchs. Catlin Schwartz was in net for the Marlins. The Marlins took eight minor penalties while the Monarchs recorded seven minor penalties.

Saturday evening saw a rematch of last year’s League final and Provincial ‘A’ Championship final and also saw a familiar result with the Cupar Canucks edging Wynyard 2-1. This was a great game with both teams taking 33 shots and all of the scoring occurring in the first period. Justin Schulhauser and Cody Hanson scored early in the first period and Bryan Kauk scored his third goal of the weekend late in the first period to make the final score 2-1. Jamie Wutke picked up the win in net for the Canucks and Dave Perkin was in net for the Monarchs. Despite fifteen minor penalties in this game there were no power play goals.

Play continues this weekend with two games on Friday evening. The Lumsden Monarchs (3-2-0) are in Southey to play the Marlins (0-4-0) and the Wynyard Monarchs (3-2-0) visit the Strasbourg Maroons (1-1-1). On Saturday evening the Avonlea Arrows (1-1-0) are in Bethune to meet the undefeated Bulldogs (3-0-0), the Raymore Rockets (1-3-0) are in Cupar to play the Canucks (3-1-0). The southern Monarchs play the northern Monarchs in Wynyard to round out Saturday evening’s schedule. On Sunday at 2:30 p.m. the Southey Marlins will be in Raymore to meet the Rockets.

Barry has the statistics up for everyone to view under the “Statistics” tab. All team statistics are listed under “Teams”. Pat Thompson-Gale from the Southey Marlins is the early leader in the Tyson Sievert trophy race with six goals and seven assists and thirteen points. Three players are tied for second with eleven points. Tyrell Shulko leads the league with seven goals and along with Steve Eberts and Brady Aulie from the Lumsden Monarchs is part of that tie for second. Brett Leffler the 2013 Sievert Trophy winner is fifth with ten points. In goaltending David Perkin from the Wynyard Monarchs leads all goalies with three wins, Troy Moltz (1.00 GAA) and Ryan Siebel (2.00 GAA) lead the league in GAA and in team goaltending (1.67 GAA). David Perkin from the Wynyard Monarchs leads all goalies in minutes played with 277 minutes. Brett Leffler from Wynyard and Mike Vondoellan from Southey lead the league with two power play goals each. Mike Reich from Bethune and Pat Thompson-Gale from Southey each have two shorthanded goals. Steve Eberts from Lumsden and Bryan McNabb Jr. from Cupar each have two game winning goals. The early power play team leader is the Strasbourg Maroons who are at a 50% success rate. They are followed by the Southey Marlins at 45% and Wynyard Monarchs at 29.3%. Cupar Canucks have the lowest power play success rate at 10%. The Strasbourg Maroons are also the top penalty killing team at 88.9% success rate. They are followed by the Bethune Bulldogs at 87% and then by the Cupar Canucks at 81%.The Southey Marlins have the lowest success rate at 53.8%.

Grey Cup is over, it was a wonderful weekend, great to see so many people to receive lots of pictures...and try and tweet from Taylor Field.... and now it’s on to Christmas and lots of hockey. Thank you for supporting the Highway Hockey League and for great senior hockey action please get out to a game near you.

Gerry Tomkins

HHL President

Follow the HHL on Twitter:  http://twitter.com/highwayhockeyor on the Pensky File http://twitter.com/GeraldT