Whats new... (Update from the office of President Gerry Tomkins)Congratulations to the community of Semans. The first inductees to the new Saskatchewan Hockey Hall of Fame were announced this month and the 1955-64 Semans Wheat Kings will be one of the teams inducted at the inaugural dinner/banquet on July 28th in Swift Current. The Wheat Kings of that era were led by the father of current HHL Commissioner Gord MacMurchy. Gordon Sr. was player/coach and led his teams to five provincial titles and six Last Mountain Hockey League championships. This was a wonderful era of hockey in Saskatchewan both from standpoint of commitment and the level of play. Before the end of our year I will talk with Jay Holmes and get some more information on team members from the era and learn more about the event. The Wheat Kings will be inducted along with the 1974 Regina Pats, 1985 Prince Albert Raiders, 1989 Swift Current Broncos and the 1982-83 University of Saskatchewan Huskies. Builders being inducted include Gordon Juckes, Ed Chynoweth, Athol Murray, Doc Seaman, Bill Hunter and grass roots contributor Bill Ford. Players being inducted include Gordie Howe, Sid Abel, Glenn Hall, Johnny Bower, Fred Sasakamoose, Metro Prystai, Bryan Trottier, Max Bentley, Doug Bentley, Elmer Lach. Referee inductee is Dennis Pottage. Congratulations Semans and district The Cupar Canucks hosted the Strasbourg Maroons for the first time this year on Friday evening and lost 5-2 to the Maroons. The Maroons first three goals were shorthanded including two of them coming on the same penalty kill. Neil Kodman had two goals with the rest of the scoring coming from Derek Back, Darryl Knaus and Brady Heintz. Ryan Bahan and Tyson Melnychuk scored for Cupar. Kelley Lueck picked up the win in net for Strasbourg while Jamie Wutke was in goal for the Canucks. The Maroons had nine minor penalties and a major penalty while the Canucks had ten minor penalties and a misconduct. In Southey, the Raymore Rockets took an early 2-0 lead on Southey with goals from Josh Belair and Dallas Thiessen. The Marlins responded with a shorthanded goal from Travis Mohr in the second period and then Pat Thompson-Gale scored with just under seven minutes remaining in the game. The Rockets responded with just under three minutes left in the game as Josh Jordan scored on the power play. Travis Mohr then took this game into overtime with his second goal of the game with just seventeen seconds left in the game. Overtime settled nothing and Tyrell Shulko scored the winner in a shootout to make the final 4-3 for the Rockets. Nathan Fischl picked up the win in net for the Rockets and Ryan Senft was in net for the Marlins. The Rockets had three minor penalties while the Marlins had seven. The Marlins and Rockets were to play this Friday in Raymore and that game has been moved to Wednesday, February 8th. In Wynyard the Lumsden Monarchs defeated the Wynyard Monarchs 8-6 for their second win over the northern Monarchs this year. After Wynyard scored the first goal of the game off the stick of Aaron Lindal, Lumsden got goals from Lance Morrison and Stuart Poulin with a shorthanded goal to hold a 2-1 lead after one period. Lumsden took a 5-1 lead in the second period with three goals, two of them power play goals, in a three minute and thirty-three second span. Their goals came from Jesse Matlock, Riley Agopsowicz and Stuart Poulin with his second goal. Bryan Kauk scored a shorthanded goal just after that and Lumsden took a 5-2 lead into the third period. Mike Bzdel got the scoring going in the third with a shorthanded goal to get Wynyard within two but Jesse Matlock scored his second of the game on the same power play to restore the three goal lead. Mike Kesserling scored and then Aaron Lindal scored his second of the game on the power play and Lumsden now led 6-5 with just over four minutes left in the game. Wynyard pulled their goalie and with just over a minute left in the game Brady Aulie scored into an empty net to make it 7-5 Lumsden. Lumsden then took a penalty and with fourteen seconds left Aaron Lindal finished the hat trick to make the score 7-6. With the net empty, Stuart Poulin finished off his hat trick with just two seconds left to make the final Lumsden 8 Wynyard 6. Trevor Thiessen picked up the win in net for Lumsden and Adam Jordan was in net for Wynyard. Wynyard took seven minor penalties while Lumsden took eight and a misconduct. Lumsden had three power play goals and one shorthanded goal while Wynyard had two power play goals and two shorthanded goals The final two games of the weekend were in Bethune. On Saturday evening the Bulldogs defeated the Wynyard Monarchs 5-4. The Bulldogs had seventeen minor penalties, one misconduct and a game misconduct while the Monarchs had nine minor penalties, a major and two game misconducts. The Bulldogs got power play goals from Brady Hubic and Ryan Donauer (game winner) and shorthanded goals from Lucas Ulmer and Lanny Flichel. We had nine shorthanded goals in four games this past weekend. Ryan Fishley scored the only even strength goal for the Bulldogs. Bethune never trailed in this game. Bryan Kauk and Mike Kesserling each had two goals for the Monarchs with each scoring one power play goal. Ryan Seibel picked up the win in net for Bethune while Adam Jordan was in net for the Monarchs. On Sunday afternoon the Bulldogs were at home to the Southey. There were a lot of penalties in this game also….Bethune had sixteen minor penalties, one major penalty, one misconduct and one game misconduct. Southey had twelve minor penalties, one misconduct and one game misconduct. Each team had four power play goals. This game was tied at 2 after two periods. Jacob Ulmer scored twice in the first period for Bethune and Curtis Markewich scored twice for the Marlins in the second period. Power play goals by Travis Mohr and Dan Morin put the Marlins up 4-2 before Dustin McAngus scored twice and Lucas Ulmer scored on the power play to put the Bulldogs up 5-4. Just as they had on Friday evening, the Marlins scored late in the third period on the power play with a goal from Devin Hillier to put this game into overtime. Lucas Ulmer scored on the power play 2:39 into overtime to give the Bulldogs the 6-5 victory. Ulmer finished with two goals and two assists while Tyler Dobrescu finished the afternoon with four assists including the only assist on the winning goal. Ryan Seibel picked up the victory in net for the Bulldogs. Ryan Senft was in net for the Marlins. This was the ninth loss in a row for the Marlins, tenth if you include their first Provincial game. The Marlins however have taken their last three league games against Bethune, Raymore and Strasbourg to overtime. Suspensions from last week….Brady Heintz, Strasbourg Maroons versus Cupar Canucks, Friday, January 27th – 3 games SHA reference 3.07.02 (f) Rule 6.1 a) Travis Holt, Bethune Bulldogs versus Southey Marlins, Sunday, January 29th - 1 game SHA reference 3.07.02 (i) Rule 6.7 a)i) Provincials continue…Lumsden lost to Bredenbury 4-2 on Sunday and lost their series with the Cougars. The Avonlea Arrows lost to Bienfait 2-1 on Sunday and lost that series 2-0. Also on Sunday the Strasbourg Maroons lost to Nokomis 4-3 in overtime in game one of their series. Game 2 is Monday evening and if a third game is required it will be played on Friday evening. On Friday evening the Cupar Canucks lost to Balcarres 5-3 and lost their series 2-0. The Provincial tab “2012 SHA Provincials” is located on the upper right side of our home page and lists all games of teams participating from the HHL. Some games have been moved and for the complete weekly schedule in our league please follow the Upcoming games listed on our home page. There are three confirmed Provincial games this week. On Monday the Strasbourg Maroons are in Nokomis. If a third game is required in the series it will be played in Strasbourg on Friday evening. On Sunday, Langenburg will be in Wynyard for a 2 p.m. start and at 7 p.m. Southey will be in Arcola. In league play, the Wynyard Monarchs (7-9-1) will try and end a three game slide as they will be in Southey to play the Marlins (4-9-4) on Tuesday evening. On Wednesday evening the Avonlea Arrows (7-7-1) and the Bethune Bulldogs (6-9-0) meet in Bethune. Both teams have a three game win streak coming into this game. There are two games on Friday evening. The Avonlea Arrows are in Lumsden to meet the Monarchs (4-9-2) and the Cupar Canucks (9-2-3) will be in Bethune. The Canucks have lost their last two games. On Saturday evening the Lumsden Monarchs travel to Avonlea to play the Arrows for the second time in two nights, the Wynyard Monarchs are in Cupar to play the Canucks and the Bethune Bulldogs will be in Strasbourg to play the first place Maroons (16-1-0). As always, I will do my best to send tweets out of Provincial game scores along with the regular season games that I have been tweeting all year. You can always access League updates on your computer or handheld with or without a Twitter account. To those of you out there sending me legitimate updates from other games, thank you. You can follow me or just catch up on updates from the HHL when they happen at http://twitter.com/GeraldT There is plenty of hockey to get out and watch this week. Please get out to a game near you and thank you for visiting our site and supporting senior hockey and the HHL. Gerry Tomkins The Highway Hockey League members convened on October 5th in Southey. Items of interest from this meeting include: - The Semans Wheat Kings have been granted a one year leave of absence. - We went over new rules this year with our Referee-in-Chief with special emphasis on hit to the head rule. The league has adopted the two Referee/one Linesman crew for 2011-12. - Schedule for 2011-12 will be 20 games. All 8 teams will be in the playoffs. Semi-finals and final will be Best of 5. Length of quarter-final matches to be determined by January 31st. - Executive from 2010-11 in place for 2011-12 season. - Executive will be making schedule this year. Earliest possible date to start will be November 4th and the last date for regular season games will be February 12th. Target date for release of schedule is October 21st. Pocket schedules will be available in early November. We are presently getting team contact information and rosters assembled to be posted on our website. Schedule will be posted just as soon as approved by all members. If there are any questions or inquiries regarding the upcoming season please send me an email at any time. Gerry Tomkins
The Highway Hockey League held their fourteenth annual Awards Night in Semans on Saturday, April 9th. A good crowd was treated to a great dinner, a little entertainment, a silent auction, words of wisdom from Commissioner MacMurchy, wit from our host Semans Manager Jay Holmes and relections of the past year of hockey from our President. Many of the trophies presented are 45 years old and some still have sponsorship from businesses that are no longer in existence or just aren't involved anymore, Some of the trophies are named after long time promoters of their communities and of the Highway Hockey League. Avon Barber Shop Scoring Champion:
Southey 5 Raymore 6 2OT -
Raymore wins series 3-0 President’s Update March 28 Raymore Rockets 2011 Highway Hockey League Champions
The Raymore Rockets went into game three of the League final with a 2-0 lead. They also carried a 2-0 lead into the 2nd period of game 3 on goals by Josh Belair and Dallas Thiessen. Four minutes into the second period Travis Mohr deflects in Southey's first goal. Southey then got into penalty trouble and nine minutes into the second period Josh Jordan scored on a 5 on 3 to put the Rockets up 3-0.The Marlins killed off the balance of the second power play and proceeded to take another minor. Travis Mohr then battled for the puck at his blue line, took off down the left side and fired a shot under the crossbar for Southey's second goal, a shorthanded goal. Later in the period Southey had their own 5 on 3 but Raymore did an excellent job on the PK. Just after killing that off Dan Morin scored to even this game up at 3 after two periods. Two minutes into the third Todd MacMurchy deflects in Raymore's fourth goal. Fourteen minutes in to the 3rd Derek Halldorson snaps in a goal to tie this game up. With less than eight minutes left to go Southey is on the power play and very quickly they score as Chad Mazurak pinches in and takes a pass from Jaret Eberle, from Dan Morin, and puts the Marlins into the lead for the first time in the game. Halldorson goes to box with 5:40 left and Southey kills that penalty with their best PK of the night. Now the excitement starts. Raymore is all over Southey in the last two minutes and Ryan Senft makes some outstanding saves but with just under a minute to go Southey purposely knocks the net loose and a penalty shot is called. Captain Josh Belair takes that penalty shot and is stopped and with that save you sense that maybe there will be a game four. However, with 37 seconds left and the goalie pulled, Andrew Baron scores and sends this game into OT. The first OT solves nothing and both teams had opportunities to score. Four minutes left in OT and Raymore goes on power play but a couple of huge saves by Senft sends this game into a second overtime. Just 25 seconds into the seconf OT, Josh Belair lifts one over Senft's shoulder and the Rockets have their first Championship since 2003 and avenge their loss in last year's final to the Marlins. This is the tenth Championship for the Rockets.
Derek Halldorson of the Marlins led playoff scoring with 11 goals and 10 assists for 21 points in 10 games. Josh Jordan from Raymore had 4 goals and 15 assists in 8 games for 19 points and he was tied with Tyler Murray from Wynyard who had 9 goals and 10 assists in 7 games. Kyle Ermel from Southey was next with 11 goals and 7 assists and then Ryan Cruse from Raymore and Curtis Markewich from Southey each had 17 points. The top ten is rounded out with Michael Jordan of Raymore and Chad Mazurak from the Marlins with 16 points each and then Travis Mohr from Southey and Mike Kesserling from Wynyard with 15 points each.
Nathan Fischl from the Rockets led all goalies with a 1.83 GAA and a perfect 8-0 record. Last years's MVP Justin Mrazek from Southey at 4.09 and Ryan Senft from Southey at 4.31 with a playoff high 612.5 minutes played, round out the top three playoff goalies.
The Highway Hockey League will be presenting hardware at the annual All Star dinner on Saturday evening April, 9th in Semans. We will be posting a page this week with all announced finalists for this year's awards. The event is important to recognize not only the efforts of the players in our league but an opportunity to show our appreciation to the volunteers throughout the league, to discuss the past season and most importantly socialize with a lot of good hockey fans. Interested? It's only $15 for a great meal and a chance to enjoy an evening with friends. Please contact your local Manager, email me or contact Jay Holmes and a ticket will be available for you.
Thank you for supporting the Highway Hockey League. Final Statistics and our All Star Dinner page will be posted this week along with a quick review of our finalists for awards. You can follow the HHL on Twitter http://twitter.com/GeraldT
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