Welland comeback bid falls short

Jr. Canadians unable to rebound after spotting Canucks 7-0 lead

By the time the Welland Jr. Canadians answered the wake-up call it was too late.

Much too late.

“I don’t care who you are, you can’t spot any team — much less, Niagara Falls — seven goals and expect to win. Not in this league,” head coach Keith Osborne said after an 8-7 loss to the Canucks.

Niagara Falls came into Sunday night’s Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League game at Welland Arena undefeated. The Jr. Canadians wanted to rebound from an 8-3 loss to the St. Catharines Falcons.

The Canucks stepped off the team bus ready to play. The Jr. Canadians? Not so much.

“They came out strong right out of the gate,” Osborne said. “We weren’t ready to play.”

Welland started taking much better care of its own end after the defence-first coach addressed the team during the first break.

“I hollered a little bit,” he said. “I told them we were forgetting what we did at practice.”

There was a night-and-day difference between how the Jr. Canadians started Sunday night’s game and how they finished it. After being outscored 6-0 in the first period, they netted four unanswered goals and outshot Niagara Falls 16-5 in the final frame.

It was the exact opposite in St. Catharines two nights earlier. Welland went up 2-0 only to be outscored 7-1 the rest of the way.

“We forgot how to play with a two-goal lead,” Osborne said.

A young team with few returning players, the Jr. Canadians are very much a work in progress at this point early in the junior B season.

“We have young kids who are not playing consistently and who are playing hard in our own end,” Osborne said. “It’s early yet. That will change with time.”

Canucks owner-head coach Frank Pietrangelo, whose team improved to 7-0, summed up Sunday’s game in Welland as one of those nights.

“Kudos to Welland tonight, they never quit,” he said. “This is junior hockey and you have strange nights like this occasionally, so you always expect the unexpected.

“But at the end of the day, we went to Welland looking for two points and we got them.”

Mitch Mendonca led Niagara Falls in scoring with a hat trick, Ryan Donovan netted two goals and Andrew Bruno, Ben Evans and Patrick McCabe also scored.

Jr. Canadians putting their names on the scoresheet were Alex Page, with two; Quinn Chevers, Aaron Chiarot, Jason Horvat, James Hruska and Jacob Thomason.

Shots were 35-34 in favour of the Canucks.

Niagara Falls went 1-for-4 on the power play; Welland, 2-for-7.

Welland, 2-4, visits Niagara Falls 7 p.m. Friday. The Canucks are back in action with a road game 7:07 p.m. Thursday versus the Thorold Blackhawks.

Panthers 5, Meteors 2

Previously undefeated Pelham rebounded from a road loss to Niagara Falls with a victory at home over Fort Erie.

Mack Honchar, Lyall Shaw, Brodie Thoms and Devon Saunders found the back of the net for the 6-1 Panthers who skated past Fort Erie 5-2 after jumping out to a 4-0 lead in afternoon action at the new Meridian Community Centre in Fonthill.

Michael Fazio and Evan Miller replied for the Meteors, 1-5-0-1.

Pelham outshot Fort Erie 51-26 and finished the game 1-for-7 on the power play. Nicholas Kidd blanked the Meteors on all seven of their scoring opportunities with a man advantage earning his third win in as many starts between the pipes for Pelham.

Jacob Hearne was tagged with the loss.

The Panthers are off until next Saturday when they visit Fort Erie.

Lone game on the Golden Horseshoe Conference schedule had the Thorold Blackhawks, 2-4, at the Hamilton Kilty B’s, 5-1.