Golden Horseshoe hockey homecoming
Three power-play goals give Niagara Falls victory over St. Catharines, move into second place
On New’s Year Day, U.S. college football has the Rose Bowl.
On Friday night at Jack Gatecliff Arena in St. Catharines, a new tradition blossomed, this one in junior B hockey.
Introducing the Forget-MeNot Bowl, a Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League game featuring Golden Horseshoe Conference teams that faced each other for the first time since exchanging players.
Round 1 went to the visiting Niagara Falls Canucks, who came back to edge the St. Catharines Falcons, 3-2, thanks in large part to power-play goals from former Falcons Carson Edwardson and Andrew Somerville.
Niagara Falls (26-8-2-2) also had a man advantage when Brodie Thoms, who began the season with the Pelham Panthers, netted the game-winner 6:55 into the final period.
Thomas Lenart, who came to St. Catharines along with fellow forward Max Lightfoot for Edwardson and Somerville, and Nick Volpatti scored evenstrength markers for the Falcons.
St. Catharines (27-10-2), which was seeking its seventh win in a row, outshot Niagara Falls 40-26, but it was the visitors who excelled on special teams. The Canucks finished the game 3-for-11 on the power play. The Falcons were 0-for-4.
Both teams ended the night with 56 points.
While St. Catharines has one more win, with 26, Niagara Falls, with a game in hand, has a higher winning percentage, .737 compared to .718.
Edwardson, a one-time Erie Otter who spent parts of three seasons in St. Catharines, relished the role of villain in his first game at The Jack since the trade to Niagara Falls.
“They fired me up actually,” he said of the boos. “When Somerville got that first one, I listened to see if he got anything, but it wasn’t much.
“When I got it, there was a bunch,” he said.
He wasn’t surprised by the reception, nor did he take it personally,” Edwardson added.
“I knew coming back here I knew what it was going to be like,” the 20-year-old Niagara Falls native said. “I heard some boos, some chirps and all that, but at the end of the day it’s just hockey.”
Edwardson didn’t approach the opening game in a weekend home-and-home series against his former team any differently.
“I just knew I could come in any play my game. Don’t worry about what they’re doing, don’t get sucked into anything,” he said.
“We had a goal before the game to come in and do what we had to do,” Edwardson added.
“We got the job done.” Despite winning their third in a row and improving to 3-1 in head-to-head play versus the Falcons, the Canucks remain a work in progress.
“We got three goals, but we probably should have had more. It was good, but it needs to be better,” owner-head coach Frank Pietrangelo said.
“We’re not overly happy with our game,” he added. “Obviously, we’re happy with the win, but for us to continue winning we’re going to have to get guys used to their roles and how we want to play.”
Five of the 20 players on the Canucks roster are new to the team, including one-time Niagara IceDog Danial Singer, who started the season in the Ontario Hockey League with Erie, and Samuel Bourdages, formerly with the Kirkland Lake Gold Miners of the Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League and Milton Menace of the Ontario Junior Hockey League.
“We made a lot of changes and we have to adjust. We have to get back to what makes us successful,” Pietrangelo said. “Everybody has different systems and how they play, and obviously it’s pretty reflective of how we played.
“I thought we were scrambling at times in the game.”
A combined 18 infractions totalling 44 minutes in penalties were called, including 12 against the hosts.
“I’ve never seen so many penalties with two great teams in my life. We killed penalty after penalty after penalty, we killed 5-on-3’s after 5-on-3’s after 5on-3’s,” Falcons head coach Tyler Bielby said. “When you take
“We got three goals, but we probably should have had more. It was good, but it needs to be better.” FRANK PIETRANGELO NIAGARA FALLS CANUCKS OWNER-HEAD COACH
that many penalties, there’s no question you have to be honest with yourself and your team. You have to be a little more disciplined. “But, outside of that, what I can take from tonight is that I have a dressing room full of winners. Night in and night out, at practice and in games, they come to work.
“Tonight was no different. I thought they deserved a better result,” he said.
The regional rivalry between the Canucks and the Falcons resumed Sunday at Gale Centre in Niagara Falls.
Panthers 2, Jr. Canadians 0 At Pelham, Nick McGowan made 33 saves for his second shutout of the season backstopping the hosts past Welland.
Jordan Tutt, 7:16 into Friday night’s game, and Jack Merkosky, an empty-netter with 19 seconds remaining in regulation, scored for Pelham (15-21-0-2).
Welland (4-29-3-1) lost its 16th game in a row despite outshooting Pelham 33-24.
Neither team scored on the power play: Panthers, 0-for-2; Jr. Canadians, 0-for-1.
A weekend series in the Battle of Rice Road wrapped up Sunday night in Welland.
The lone Golden Horseshoe game on Saturday night’s schedule — Caledonia Corvairs (33-3-0-1) at Fort Erie Meteors (8-24-0-5) — was among give junior-B games postponed due to inclement weather.