Canucks graduates playing for junior A championship
Niagara Falls Canucks graduates Andrew Barbeau and Frank Pucci are stickhandling their way across Canada one championship at a time.
Next stop? Chilliwack, B.C. That’s where the RBC Cup Canadian Junior A Championship gets underway Saturday, and where their latest team, the Wellington Dukes, will represent the Central Region.
Barbeau, a defenceman and for the past two seasons Canucks team captain, and Pucci, a forward and top goal getter during the Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League regular season, joined the Dukes after Niagara Falls was eliminated by the Caledonia Corvairs in the semifinal round of the Golden Horseshoe Conference playoffs.
Pucci, who is committed to going to Brock University in September, had four goals and added two assists as Wellington went 5-1 on the way to winning the Dudley-Hewitt Cup and a berth in the RBC Cup.
He was second on the Dukes in scoring at the four-team tournament in Dryden, Ont., to Mitchell Mendoca, a Thorold native and one-time Hamilton Bulldog who netted four goals and collected four assists.
Mendonca’s power-play with 7:15 remaining in regulation stood as the game-winner in Wellington’s 7-4 victory over the host Dryden Ice Dogs in the Dudley-Hewitt Cup final.
Pucci had a goal and an assist as the Dukes won their third Dudley-Hewitt Cup and first since 2011.
Wellington, which is 30 kilometres south of Belleville, advanced to the Central Region qualifier as the Ontario Junior Hockey League champion.
Rounding out the four-team tournament in Dryden were the Thunder Bay North Stars of the Superior International Junior Hockey League, the host league, and the Cochrane Crunch, champions of the Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League.
Pucci, a 21-year-old native of Sault Ste. Marie, had 42 goals and 43 assists in 48 regular-season games in his fourth, and final, season in junior B with the Canucks.
Barbeau, 20, also from Sault Ste. Mare, had two goals and 45 assists in 50 games in his third season patrolling the blue line in Niagara Falls.
After graduating from the Welland-based Southern Tier Admirals triple A program, Mendonca played parts of the two seasons in junior B with Thorold before playing 43 games in the Ontario Hockey League with Hamilton during the 2015-16 season.
The 19-year-old forward has spent the past two seasons with the Dukes.