CALEDONIA – Judging by the standings as the 2016 to 2017 regular season comes to an end the Caledonia Pro-Fir Corvairs should have a pretty easy time of it in the early rounds.
Although it has not yet been determined who they will play, it seems that only the St. Catharines Falcons should give them a hard time.
The Corvairs are 38-5-1-0 with 77 points compared to the second-place St. Catharines Falcons with 34 wins and seven losses. The difference is in the overtime losses column where the Falcons have lost in overtime for three of a possible six points. Those same six points separate the Falcons and the Corvairs with six games remaining for each team.
Last Friday, February 3rd, at the Gale Centre in Niagara Falls, the Corvairs and the Canucks unleashed fire on each other knowing how every point can make a difference at this time of the season. They played to a 0-0 first period after 10 shots on each net.
In the second period, Corvairs’ Bailey Fletcher got his team going with back-to-back goals four minutes apart. Troy Henley, Eddie Schults and Jamie Lauzon piled on to end the middle frame with the Corvairs holding a 6-0 lead with 20 minutes of play left. Holden Hrysko made it 7-0 at 2:06 of the third period.
Caledonia goaltender Daniel Chenard was stung for two for delay of game penalties
The second of which turned into Niagara Falls’ first goal of the game ruining his shutout bid. With the game miles out of reach, Niagara took advantage of a late Caledonia penalty scoring the last goal of the match at 19:07.
Next up for the Corvairs was a fired-up Ancaster Avalanche at the Morgan Firestone Arena, Saturday night. Coach Mike Bullard decided to give back up goaltender Bradley Van Schubert a start to give him some valuable ice time, but it didn’t work out well on this given night. Van Schubert allowed three goals in seven shots before he was replaced by Chenard who held the Avalanche off the rest of the game.
Although that stopped the bleeding defensively, the Caledonia offence sputtered. Christian Polillo netted a powerplay goal at 8:19 which Zachary Core followed, and it was a 3-1 game with a full period left and the Corvairs coming on.
Caledonia more than doubled the Avalanches in shots on goal in the third, but Matt Calas stood up to 15 shots to preserve the 3-2 win for Ancaster.
This coming Thursday night the Corvairs are in Thorold, Saturday, Feb. 11, they host Welland at the Haldimand Centre Arena, and Tuesday night, they are in Buffalo.
The Sutherland Cup is named after Captain James T. Sutherland. He was a hockey pioneer who was instrumental in the promotion of the Ontario Hockey Association at every opportunity.
He became president of the OHA in 1915 and, one year later, first held the same office for the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association. He was known as one of the main sources for hockey information, as a coach, and as a referee.
He introduced preseason conditioning exercises and a coaching system. In 1919 on his discharge from the army, one of his first accomplishments was to recommend a trophy as a memorial to the young men who died in the European conflict. From this came the creation of the Memorial Cup, emblematic of the Canadian Junior Championship, first awarded to the University of Toronto in 1919.
He dedicated his life to helping Canadians recognize and preserve the heritage of their winter sport. To his death on September 15, 1955, he insisted that events in the town of Kingston in 1888 made that location the actual birthplace of organized hockey.
James Thomas Sutherland is known simply as the father of hockey in Ontario.
