Second season underway
Junior B hockey playoffs begin this week in Golden Horseshoe Conference
Junior B hockey’s playoff picture, which has been developing since league play began in early September, came into complete focus after the final buzzer in the final game on the final night of the regular season. Half of the four opening-round matchups in the Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League’s Golden Horseshoe Conference weren’t decided until the Welland Jr. Canadians closed out the 50game regular season by doubling the Fort Erie Meteors 2-1 Sunday. Welland’s whistle-to-whistle win at home, coupled with the Pelham Panthers’ 3-0 road loss to the Caledonia in Sunday’s other night game, lifted the Jr. Canadians into sixth place in the nineteam conference. The Jr. Canadians finished the season with a 17-28-3-2 record, one point ahead of Pelham, 17-29-1-3. Also up for grabs Sunday was second place. The St. Catharines Falcons and Ancaster Avalanche each had 78 points heading into the last day of the schedule, with the Falcons taking care of business with a 4-2 road victory over the Niagara Falls Canucks. Ancaster would have won the tiebreaker based on more wins had St. Catharines lost on Sunday afternoon. With the first-round matchups now set, the focus shifts to the GOJHL’s second season: the playoffs; specifically, the best-ofseven quarter-finals starting this week. One series, No. 1 seed Caledonia versus eighth-seeded Fort Erie, is already underway with Meteors visiting the four-time defending champion Corvairs Tuesday night in Caledonia.
Game 2 is 7:15 Wednesday at Fort Erie Leisureplex where the Meteors earned their only point in the six-game season versus Caledonia. They were awarded a consolation point in a 4-3 over-
time loss Nov. 4. The 2-7 matchup, pitting the Falcons against Pelham, starts Friday night as does the series between fourth-seeded Niagara Falls and the No. 5 seed, the Thorold Blackhawks. Ancaster versus Welland in the post-season battles between the third and sixth seeds is the last to start. Game 1 is 7:30 p.m. Saturday in Ancaster. The ninth-place Buffalo Regals, who finished the regular season with a 2-43-0-5 record, are only one of two teams in the 26team league that failed to qualify for the playoffs. Also relegated to the sidelines and already starting to think about next year are the 10-33-2-5 St. Marys Lincolns, the cellar-dwellers in the nine-team Western Conference. Caledonia finished the regular season first overall with a 45-4-0-1 record. The Listowel Cyclones, 43-5-0-2, and London, 35-12-0-3, set the pace in the Midwestern and Western conferences, respectively. The defending Sutherland Cup champion Elmira Sugar Kings, 29-21-0-0, finished third in the Midwest.