Paris Wolfpack squared off against the Port Dover Pirates in
a close, friendly hockey match at our home centre this past Sunday evening.
Many families and friends came out to enjoy the game and
support our players.
Evan had a particularly large family turn out to his game with both sets of grandparents including his grandparents from Sudbury along with other family members. Evan did not disappoint his viewers as he scored the first goal of the game, in the first 4 minutes of play, on a 3 way play from Spencer to Josh R to Evan who, out front of the net, slapped the puck to put it behind the Pirates goalie. In perfect viewing for his family who were sitting in the viewing lobby directly behind the visitors net to share in the celebratory moment.
Before the ending of the first period, with a minute and a half remaining Riley McHutchion gathered speed and plotted his course through the Pirates and skated end to end and a blazing shot resulted in a textbook bar down, easily beating the Port Dover goalie. An outstanding play, I can imagine that if Bob Cole, hockey sports broadcaster was covering our game, you would have heard him exclaim, ‘McHutchion scores, oh baby ... what a goal.’
Our second period was a lull moment in our game for our team as we had to contend with killing off two penalties that were uncharacteristic of our team and were unnecessary penalties to take. This also cost us a goal against our team as the Pirates attacked our net and scored to cut our lead by just one.
The third period would be the deciding period for both teams; fortunately, our team was in it to win it and carried on hustling and were found battling for the puck in our opponents zone and in a true team effort we earned our final goal of the game as Riley whistled in and around the net, passed it out front to Deryk who with a quick one timer scored our 3rd goal of the game.
We would have scored a few more goals if it wasn’t for the Pirates goalie who was brilliant throughout the game in particular one play alone he must have blocked 6 or 7 shots from every angle in his zone from the point, rebounds, corner shots and direct in front attempts.
I would be remiss in not mentioning all of our other players who played a strong game, starting with our goaltender Caleb who saved 27 shots, Jaden who had some fantastic shots on net and tape to tape passes and Jackson who had some great rushes and shots on net and endured some hard knocks while doing so. Spencer was seen covering the full ice and knocking the puck off of many Pirates sticks, Kaleb’s stick handling enabled him to get around our opponents and get in scoring range, Fletcher was persistent and battled hard for the puck that earned him a great breakaway opportunity and Cameron was instrumental in holding the puck in our opponents zone to increase our scoring attempts. Riley McLelland prevented goal attempts on our net by slapping the bloody puck up along the boards to get it out of our zone and finally Josh R had a great scoring attempt as he manoeuvred with ease through the Port Dover line and had the goalie beat, if it wasn’t for a last effort toe touch by the goalie to stop his deek from slipping behind him.
Congratulations to Joshua Racette for being named ‘Player of the Week.’
Go Wolfpack Go!
Kevin Noseworthy