Meteors come back to win in overtime
Overager Blake Hall scores game-winner on power play
The first Sutherland Cup qualifying game at home in franchise history featured a Hollywood ending for the host Fort Erie Meteors on Saturday night.
Not only did they come from behind to return to the win column after suffering a disappointing setback the night before, but the Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League Golden Horseshoe Conference champions also kept those who weren’t already standing in an announced crowd at Fort Erie Leisureplex on the edge of their seats by — you guessed it! — winning in overtime.
Of course, to make this tale of two conference champion teams worthy of the full Tinseltown treatment, the man of the hour had to be an overager from the home team in the final hurrah of his junior hockey career — and it was.
Blake Hall netted the game-winner on the power play 1:59 into OT to give the Meteors a 2-1 victory over the St. Marys Lincolns, playoff champions of the GOJHL’s Western Conference.
It was the 21-year-old Fort Erie native’s fifth of the playoffs and a “huge” goal that he dedicated to the junior-B team’s fans.
“I loved getting that one for the crowd,” he said. “They were going crazy all night.”
Compared to Fort Erie’s performance in a 6-1 road loss to the Midwestern champion Listowel Cyclones the night before, the Meteors never let themselves be dominated by the Lincolns.
“I think we had a good all-around game from start to finish,” Hall said. “I think we outplayed them in the second (period), but we just couldn’t bury one. It’s nice to finally get one.”
Associate coach Anthony Passero said he wasn’t surprised it was Hall who came through as Mr. Clutch with the game on the line.
“I don’t think anyone deserves it more than him. Risky move, him coming back here this year in August in his 20-year-old year with a team that didn’t have many returnees,” Passero said.
“I think all year he’s just been getting rewarded for it. To see that puck go high and hard like that was, well, we felt like his parents on the bench. We were jumping up and down,” he added.
“No one deserves it more than him. It was just exciting to watch.”
Passero said the first Sutherland Cup win in Meteors franchise history still felt a “little surreal for us.”
“That’s a big one, that’s a big puck to get,” he said.
“It’s just something that you never thought this town was going to do,” Passero added.
“Because of guys like Blake Hall coming home, really dialing into what he really wanted to do here with this program, it just speaks magnitudes.”
Fort Erie was playing its second game in as many nights. Passero was asked if there was a fear the Meteors would be spent when Saturday night’s contest went into overtime against a St. Marys team that hadn’t played since Sunday, April 14.
“That’s always an issue that might be in the back of your mind but, at the end of the day, we have off until Wednesday,” he said.
“These guys (St. Marys) have to play again tomorrow and that’s going to be in the back of their minds.”
Before returning to the ice for overtime, Passero heard a “couple of guys in the room going, ‘Let’s finish this thing early.’ ”
“I know he (Hall) didn’t want to play too much longer. He’s getting old so I don’t think he wanted to be out there,” Passero said with a chuckle. “But, at the end of the day, we’re here for a reason. It’s April 20 and these guys are in good shape and they’re going to keep going until someone tells them they can’t.
“There are three champions still playing hockey, and it’s the three teams that have the shortest memory. Whether you win or lose, tomorrow’s a new day.”
Chase MacQueen-Spence broke a scoreless tie 7:56 into the second period with his 14th goal of the playoffs for the Lincolns.
Hunter Coley, who scored Fort Erie’s lone goal in the loss to Listowel, tied the game less than 10 minutes later. The Meteors appeared to score a go-ahead goal with 1:39 remaining in the second, but it was waved off after it was ruled the net had been knocked off its moorings.
Fort Erie outshot St. Marys 29-25, with the Meteors’ Charlie Burns and the Lincolns’ Brandon Abbott putting on goaltending clinics in their respective creases.
Fort Erie went one-for-two on the power play. St. Marys didn’t get a power-play opportunity.
Fort Erie hosts Listowel on Wednesday night and wraps up the double round-robin qualifying tournament Friday in St. Marys.
Listowel hosts St. Marys in the final game of qualifying on Sunday.
The top two finishers in the tournament will face each other in a best-of-seven final for the Sutherland Cup provincial junior-B championship.
Fort Erie has yet to win a Sutherland Cup. St. Marys is seeking its third and first since 1976, while Listowel took its lone Ontario junior-B title in 2018.