Renegades are off to a good start
Grand River opens the season with a lopsided win
ELMIRA — Some high school hockey programs rebuild, the Grand River Renegades reload.
The two-time defending champions opened the Waterloo County (WCSSAA) campaign Tuesday with a 9-0 win over the Elmira Lancers at Dan Snyder Arena. Adam Kinnear, Nic Andreotte and Ashton Patterson scored two goals apiece — their line accounted for 12 points — and Brennan Gerrard recorded the shutout without breaking much of a sweat.
The Renegades have eight returnees from last year’s squad that defeated the Huron Heights Huskies in the WCSSAA final and advanced to the all-Ontario (OFSAA) championship for the second straight year.
The goal is to make a third straight appearance.
“It’s always the goal to get to OFSAA but shift by shift, game by game, you’ve got to get WCSSAA first, then CWOSSA (Central Western Ontario), then OFSAA. We lost a lot of good guys from last year but we have five fifth-year guys that bring leadership and the young guys are looking good,” said Kinnear.
“It feels good to get that first win under your belt today and we’ll go from here,” he said.
“We’ve got a hard game against Huron Heights next (Thursday), a good team with a lot of returning players.”
The Renegades were in complete control against the Lancers and needed just 26 seconds to score what turned out to be the game-winning goal.
Patterson cleanly won a faceoff in the Elmira end and Andreotte blasted the puck by Lancers goaltender Matt Turkalj to get the champions off to the best possible start.
Owen Bender, Sam Klages and Max Haalboom also scored for the Renegades, who led 5-0 after the first period and 8-0 after two.
Turkalj turned in a strong performance for the Lancers, who played the vast majority of the game in their own end.
The two-goal performance came as something of a relief for Kinnear, who took a bit of a goodnatured ribbing from his coaches last week at a pre-season tourney in St. Catharines. The Grade 12 student, a second-year player with the team, struggled with puck luck at the Mahler Classic as the Renegades lost in the semifinal round of the 16-team event.
“I couldn’t score for the life of me in the first tournament, but that’s hockey,” he said with a smile.
“Honestly, I think of myself as more of a passer. Ashton Patterson and Nic Andreotte are supposed to score the goals on my line but I guess it changes from game to game.”
Three other games were contested Tuesday, with the Waterloo Vikings scoring a 4-1 win over the Preston Panthers, Huron Heights eking out a 4-3 win over the Galt Ghosts, and the KCI Raiders and Waterloo-Oxford Crusaders skating to a 3-3 tie.
The league is down four schools from last year, with the Forest Heights and Cameron Heights withdrawing because of a lack of players and Bluevale not entering a team because of past behavioural issues. Sir John A. Macdonald suspended its team last week because of a pre-season party that led to a player being hospitalized for excessive alcohol consumption.
Each team will play four more games before the Christmas break and all but Galt will compete in the 18th McKerlie Classic. It’s being hosted by KCI and will be staged Dec. 20-21 at RIM Park and Albert McCormick Arena.