Noble effort proves to be good as gold

Belle River first team from area to win OFSAA boys hockey title since 2004

It started as a quest for a medal and ended up with the first area gold medal in boys’ high school hockey in more than a decade.

The No. 4 Belle River Nobles scored late in regulation to force extra time, then won in a shootout to capture the OFSAA boys’ A/ AA hockey championship in Fort Frances.

“When we were told we were fourth, we had that moment where we thought we had a shot, but we took it one game at a time,” said Nobles goalie Patty Timpany, whose team became the first area OFSAA boys hockey champ since Essex in 2004.

The Nobles scored with 77 seconds left in regulation and captain Cody McFarlane scored the only goal in the five-round shootout to give Belle River a 3-2 win over the No. 3 Hamilton St. Mary’s Crusaders in the gold-medal final.

“It was pretty awesome,” Nobles forward Colton O’Brien said. “We were thinking we wanted gold. We were just working to battle for everything.”

The Nobles played comeback kids on an almost daily basis at the tournament.

Belle River rallied with two goals in the third period to tie the No. 6 Clinton St. Anne Eagles 2-2 and clinch first place in the team’s pool with two wins and a tie.

“That was huge,” said Dave Bracken, who coaches the Nobles along with Mike Smith. “We were still going to advance, but it just set us up on a little different path to the quarter-finals, semis and final.”

Tied at 2-2, the Nobles scored two unanswered goals in the third period to beat the No. 5 Campbellford Flames in the quarter-finals to reach the medal round for the first time in school history in five attempts.

In the semis, the Nobles rallied from a one-goal deficit after the first period with single goals in the second and third periods to beat the No. 7 St. Catharines Holy Cross Raiders 2-1.

The club would need to rally again in the final. O’Brien scored to tie the game at 1-1 and added a power-play goal with 77 seconds left in regulation to tie the game at 2-2 and force overtime.

“They had a pretty good PK (penalty kill) and a good goalie in net,” O’Brien said. “Ryan Nicholson fed me and I went to shoot and saw there was no lane. So I stopped and stepped around and coach Smith said to go blocker side and just shot in that area.”

Timpany did not allow a goal in the shootout and was mobbed by his teammates after thwarting Hamilton’s final shooter.

“We got down, but we never got down on ourselves,” Timpany said. “I knew the guys could rally. It’s still kind of surreal.”