Top two seeds battle for conference title

Falcons face Corvairs in finals for fifth year in a row

Gee, doesn’t this look familiar, the St. Catharines Falcons playing the Caledonia Corvairs for the Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League Golden Horseshoe Conference championship.

Wasn’t this the matchup for the best-of-seven final last year, the year before that, and the year before that?

In fact, the clash of the junior B titans getting underway Wednesday night in Caledonia marks the fifth year in a row that the Falcons will battle the Corvairs for the right to represent the conference in the Sutherland Cup tournament.

Caledonia won the previous four on the way to capturing three league championships, but St. Catharines general managercoach Frank Girhiny likes his team’s chances going into this round of the post-season rivalry.

His enthusiasm is not tempered by the fact the Corvairs are well-rested — their last game was March 21 — while the Falcons didn’t clinch a berth in the final until they defeated the Ancaster Avalanche in Game 7 Monday night.

“That’s fine, good I’m glad they’re rested,” he said. “Our guys feel great, we’re good.

“We’ve got lots of bodies — heck, I think we used 29, 30 players in the playoffs — and we feel real good.”

Historically, St. Catharines hasn’t done well against Caledonia in the playoffs. Since moving

to the Golden Horseshoe from the Midwestern Conference five years ago, the Corvairs have taken the conference championship each time.

They needed six games to defeat the Falcons in last year’s

final , four the year before and five games in 2014 and 2015.

As far as Girhiny is concerned, that history is so much ancient history given the present state of his team. St. Catharines won the

season series with the Corvairs going 4-2 in head-to-head play.

“We’re excited about playing Caledonia, we’ve had some really good games against them this year,” he said. “The best thing is our guys are not intimidated by that team at all.

“I think we match up very well against them. They’re deep, no doubt, but I think we’re deep.”

Buoying the veteran coach’s confidence is a defence that limited opponents to 2.32 goals per game in league play and goaltending duo of Owen Savory and Dillon Lamarche that compiled a league-best .925 save percentage over the course of a 50-game regular season.

That blue-chip back end was even stingier in the playoffs. With Savory playing every minute of every game, the Falcons surrendered an average of 2.18 goals in a four-game sweep of the Pelham Panthers and a seven-game marathon versus Ancaster.

Savory’s save percentage coming into Game 1 of the final is .927.

“We’ve got really good defence and we have a goalie,” Girhiny

said. “It’s going to be a really good battle.

“We’ll have a real good game Wednesday night and Game 2 is here in our rink, where we have been pretty good.”

St. Catharines is 6-0 when playing at home in this year’s playoffs, while Caledonia is 5-0.

The Corvairs, who finished the regular season first in the conference nine points ahead of the

Falcons, advanced to the finals by sweeping the Fort Erie Meteors and needing only five games to dispatch the Niagara Falls Canucks to the sidelines in the semifinals.

St. Catharines is going to the finals for the seventh year in a row.