The puck drops here
Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League season getting underway with showcase in Brantford
POSTMEDIA NEWS
Wayne Gretzky Sports Centre in Brantford will be junior B hockey central next month.
For three days, Sept. 8-10, the fourpad will host 26 games featuring all of the teams in the Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League, including the six clubs in Niagara that compete in the Golden Horseshoe Conference.
Every team will start the regular season playing two games each at the showcase, which is being moved to the Telephone City after taking place the past two seasons in London.
Once again teams from the same conference won’t be facing each other, but results from opening weekend of the 50-game season will count in the final standings.
Only other time there is interconference play in the 26-team loop is when the three conference playoff champions and a wild card compete in the Sutherland Cup semifinals. Winners go on to a best-ofseven series for the Ontario junior B championship.
In May, the Elmira Sugar Kings, the wild card, took the Sutherland Cup in a five-game final with the Western Conference champion London Nationals. Elmira won it all despite losing the Midwestern Conference final to the Listowel Cyclones in six games.
In the semifinals, the Sugar Kings needed to win six games to eliminate the Golden Horseshoe champion Caledonia Corvairs, who were seeking their fourth straight Sutherland Cup title, while London dispatched Listowel in five games.
Teams in the Golden Horseshoe – Ancaster Avalanche, Buffalo Regals, Caledonia, Fort Erie Meteors, Niagara Falls Canucks, Pelham Panthers, St. Catharines Falcons, Thorold Blackhawks, Welland Junior Canadians – play each other six teams in league play.
Ironically, the conference that lost a team heading into the playoffs is the only one coming back to start the 2017-18 season with the same lineup.
While the Midwest is down to eight teams, following the decision by the Cambridge Winter Hawks to league and seek reclassification to junior A, and Lambton Shores relocated to Komoka in the West, the Golden Horseshoe is back intact.
There wasn’t that certainty in early February when the league and the Ontario Hockey Association, citing concern for player safety, suspended the Thorold Blackhawks with eight games left in the regular season.
A decision that also awarded forfeits, by a 5-0 score; to the remaining
Back on the ice
Following are training camp dates and exhibition game schedules for the six Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League teams from Niagara: Fort Erie Meteors: today, 8:30-10:30 p.m; Friday, exhibition game, at Pelham, 7:30 p.m.; Saturday, exhibition game, Pelham, 1 p.m.; Tuesday, Wednesday, 7-9 p.m.; Tuesday, Aug. 29; Wednesday, Aug. 30; Thursday, Aug. 31, 7-8:30 p.m. Niagara Falls Canucks: Tuesday, Aug. 22, camp opens; Wednesday, Aug. 23, exhibition game, at St. Catharines, exhibition game, 7:30 p.m.; Friday, Aug. 25-Sunday, Aug. 27, exhibition tournament at Gale Centre. Pelham Panthers: today, exhibition game, Brantford, 7:30 p.m.; Friday, exhibition game, Fort Erie, 7:30 p.m.; Saturday, exhibition game, at Fort Erie, 1 p.m.; Monday, opponents on Thorold’s schedule was made after a perfect storm of injuries, illness, suspensions and exhibition game, at Brantford, 7 p.m.; Tuesday, Wednesday, 8:30-10 p.m.; Friday, Aug. 25, to Sunday, Aug. 27, pre-season tournament at Pelham Arena St. Catharines Falcons: Monday, Tuesday, camp skate, 7-9 p.m., Jack Gatecliff Arena; Wednesday, exhibition game, Niagara Falls, 7:30 p.m.; Thursday, Aug. 24, camp skate, 7-9 p.m.; Friday, Aug. 25, exhibition game, at Stratford, 7:30 p.m.; Monday, Aug. 28, camp skate, 7-9 p.m.; Tuesday, Aug. 29, exhibition game, Thorold, 7:30 p.m. Thorold Blackhawks: Friday, 7-9 p.m.; Saturday, 4-6 p.m.; Tuesday, 7-9 p.m.; Wednesday, 6-8 p.m., Friday, Aug. 25-Sunday, Aug. 27, exhibition tournament in Niagara Falls; Gale Centre; Tuesday, Aug. 29, exhibition game, at St. Catharines, 7:30 p.m. Welland Junior Canadians: Tuesday, Thursday, Aug. 24, 7-9 p.m., Gale Centre, Pad 3, Niagara Falls. exceeding the cap on affiliated players who could be called up made it increasingly difficult for the Blackhawks to put a full lineup on the ice later in the season.
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