Southey Marlins 2010 Highway Hockey League Champions….

The trend continues as only three times in the past fifteen years have we had a League pennant winner win the League Championship….2004 Southey Marlins, 2001 Lumsden Monarchs and 1996 Cupar Canucks. In 2010 the Southey Marlins defeat our League Pennant winners Raymore Rockets three games to one with an 8 – 6 victory on Friday evening in Southey. This was an interesting game and probably a game the defensive side of both teams would prefer to forget.

The Rockets started out strong and scored the first three goals of the game and had a 3-0 lead just nine minutes into the game with two goals from Josh Belair, the first a power play goal, and a goal from Brett Kuglin. The Marlins Brad Shambel scored eleven minutes in but the Rockets restored their three goal lead at the 16:52 mark with a goal from Dallas Thiessen when they were on a five on three power play. Just one minute later the Marlins Kyle Ermel scored and it was 4-2 Rockets after one period of play. The scoring continued in the second period as the Marlins got a power play goal three minutes in from Jaret Eberle. At the 10:42 mark Chet Hillier scored to tie the game. Just after that Marlin goal the strangest event of the game happened. The Rockets thought they had scored and that is when the Marlins grabbed the puck and went to the other end and Riley Probst scored to give the Marlins the lead. There are those in the stands that saw it both ways but the bottom line is that it was not deemed a goal. Give the Rockets credit, a lot of credit…despite the fact that they were down two goals after having the lead most of the game, Catlin Sich scored on another five on three with 3:15 left in the period and Byron Horvath scored with 1:26 left in the period and we had a 6-6 tie after two periods. The end of the second period gave the Rockets life in the third and despite a couple of good chances goalie Kifferling made a couple nice saves. Same thing can be said for the Marlins opportunities as Nathan Fischl made some good saves also. There was no scoring until Kyle Ermel scored at the 10:32 mark and again with a power play goal at the 12:25 mark to record a hat trick. Ermel also had one assist in the game to make it a four point night. Ryan Cruse from the Rockets also had a four point night with four assists. Despite pulling their goalie in the last few minutes of the game the Rockets could not score and the Marlins claimed their first championship since 2006 with an 8-6 victory. Final shots were Rockets 40 and Marlins 28. Thank you to the tremendous crowd that turned out for this game.

These two clubs have enjoyed tremendous success in our league and it is amazing that it has been twenty years since they faced each other in a League championship. Congratulations to the Raymore Rockets on a tremendous season and congratulations to the Southey Marlins winners of the 44th League Championship. This is the Marlins fifth League Championship.

The season is not quite over…the Highway Hockey League’s annual All Star Banquet will be held in Cupar for the first time on Saturday, April 10th. For those of you that have not been to this event, please consider attending. The League has some beautiful hardware to hand out and it is a very good social evening to talk about the season that has just ended and to thank our players, Coaches, Managers and volunteers for their contributions for another successful season. The Agenda will be on our front page this week. If you have any questions regarding this event please email me. Tickets are $15 and are available from your local Manager or by emailing Cory Haines cshaines@sasktel.net

Please consider attending this event. This event is for the players and most importantly for all of the volunteers and fans throughout the League. The League takes great pride in making sure that the players are recognized for their accomplishments this past season and the trophies and plaques are impressive. Thank you to our fans and of course thank you to our volunteers whether they be on League executive or work for their home town team as 50/50 sellers, timekeepers, scorekeepers or working the door…thank you this league would not run without you!

Thank you for supporting the Highway Hockey League. Our spring meeting date will be posted on this page and this year’s Award recipients will be posted on Sunday, April 11th. Thank you to Pete Hubick for the pictures. We’ll see you in Cupar on April 10th