Busy junior B sked features four games
It’s a busy weekend in the Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League’s Golden Horseshoe Conference, tonight especially.
Saturday is the night for Fort Erie Meteors home games and has been for years. Usually, the Hamilton Kilty B’s visit to the Leisureplex would be the only junior B game on the schedule.
However, the Lockport Regals, whose usual date for home games is Wednesday, entertain the Niagara Falls Canucks in western New York tonight.
Hamilton, currently third in the eight-team conference, is
14-6. Seventh-place Fort Erie is 4-16-0-1.
Conference- and league-leading Niagara Falls was 18-2-0-1 heading into a home game Friday night versus the Pelham Panthers,
13-8-0-1. Cellar-dwelling Lockport is 3-15-1.
Sunday action has Pelham, the only Golden Horseshoe team regularly hosting afternoon games, taking on the Thorold Blackhawks, 8-11-1; in a 2:30 p.m. matinee at the new Meridian
Community Centre in Fonthill.
In the nightcap, it’s the Welland Jr. Canadians home to Lockport for a 7:05 p.m. puck drop.
Two streaks were on the line when the St. Catharines Falcons, 15-3-0-1; hosted Welland, 5-14-0-1; at Jack Gatecliff Arena in the other game on the Golden Horseshoe schedule Friday night.
St. Catharines, winners of five in a row, was seeking to extend its point streak to 16 games. Welland was hoping to avoid its sixth consecutive loss.
Results from last night’s action were unavailable at press time, but summaries are posted online at stcatharinesstandard.ca, niagarafallsreview.ca and wellandtribune.ca.
Blackhawks 4, Meteors 1
At Thorold, the host Blackhawks jumped out a two-goal lead and continued their seasonlong dominance over Fort Erie.
Owen Allan, Trevor Neumann, Brendan Charlton, on the power play; and Nick Gidney found the back of the net for the Blackhawks, who improved to 3-0 versus the Meteors in head-to-head play.
Thorold’s Jonathan Balah failed to score on a penalty shot in the third period in Thursday night’s game.
Luca Mazzo replied for Fort Erie which was outshot 42-28.
Chase Grisic earned the win in net for Thorold. Ethan Cook was tagged with the loss.
RiverHawks 3, Hawks 3
At Niagara Falls, Dante Massi scored twice, and host Niagara edged Hagersville in the Provincial Junior Hockey League’s Battle of the Birds.
Karl Lavoie rounded out the scoring the RiverHawks who improved to 11-8-0-2, snapped a four-game losing streak and overtook the Hawks for third place despite being outshot 49-37 in Thursday night’s junior C game at Gale Centre.
Hagersville fell to 10-8-1-2 and now trail Niagara by one point.
RiverHawks head coach Tim Barath was pleased with team’s effort overall.
“It was a hard-fought game all over the ice,” he said. “There wasn’t a lot of room out there, and Matt (Boere) made some big saves for us when we needed it.
Niagara, he said, needs to start scoring on the power play.
“We move it around well but just need to get some more shots on net and in traffic.”
Hagersville went 2-for-8 with a man advantage, Niagara, 0-for-5.
The RiverHawks are back on the ice Saturday hosting the Hamilton Huskies Jr. Blues, 9-11-1; on Minor Hockey Night at Gale Centre.
All minor hockey players wearing their jersey are admitted free with $5 admission for accompanying adults. Faceoff is half an hour earlier at 7 p.m.
Friday night junior C action had the Grimsby Peach Kings, 18-3-1; visiting the Dunnville Mudcats, 4-12-1-2.
Source: Pointstreak Sports Technologies Inc.