Staff
Outside of the Fort Frances Lakers and Duncan Keith, former Fort Frances Jr. Sabres goalie Ryan Faragher is one of the few locally-connected players with a shot at hockey glory left standing at this juncture of the season.
Faragher is helping to lead the charge for the North American Hockey League’s Bismarck Bobcats, who will play their final two regular-season games this weekend against Albert Lea.
The 19-year-old has won six of his last eight starts as the Bobcats clinched the league’s Central Division for the second-straight season, holding a healthy 16-point cushion on Owatonna.
Overall, Faragher has a record of 22-6-7, a goals against average of 2.15, and a save percentage of 0.922 on the season.
One other championship shot lies with Dauphin Kings’ defenceman Mike Boese, who suited up for the Sabres last season.
With Dauphin hosting the RBC Cup, Boese is guaranteed a run at the national Junior ‘A’ title in his first season in the Manitoba Junior Hockey League.
But the Kings just might make it there under their own power as they’re set to face the Winnipeg Saints in the MJHL final beginning Saturday (March 27).
Boese has recorded five assists during the playoff run after notching two goals and 19 assists in the regular season.
But that’s where the success ends for locals playing abroad.
Also in the MJHL, Fort Frances’ Kyle Turgeon and Atikokan’s Graham Dyck were shut down in the Portage Terriers’ 4-1 first-round loss to the Swan Valley Stampeders.
Turgeon posted three assists in five games to go along with eight penalty minutes while Dyck was held scoreless in his three games while posting 12 penalty minutes.
During the regular season, Turgeon came up with 28 points in an injury-shortened campaign. Dyck, a mid-season acquisition, chipped in two goals and five assists in 17 games in Portage.
Still in Manitoba, the Selkirk Steelers’ first-round exit was no fault of former Jr. Sabre Brendan Baumgartner, who tied for the team lead with nine points (five goals and four assists) in Selkirk’s 4-2 series loss to the Winkler Flyers.
In a season split with the Dauphin Kings and the Steelers, Baumgartner put up 30 goals and 31 assists in 64 games.
Meanwhile, Emo native Cody Mosbeck found himself sidelined earlier than in 2009 as his Gustavus Adolphus Golden Gusties were bounced in the quarter-finals of the NCAA Division III tournament.
Mosbeck, the team’s captain, contributed two goals and nine assists on the team’s back-end. But one year after a Cinderella trip to the tournament final, the Gusties were knocked off 3-1 by St. Norbert, the eventual runners-up, on March 13.
A little further north at St. Scholastica, a pair of locals and their Saints came up short in their tournament bid.
Fort Frances products Tyler Miller and Chris Sinclair were part of the Saints’ team that was upset 6-3 by Wisconsin-River Falls in the semi-final of the Northern Collegiate Hockey Association playoffs.
Miller finished tied for fourth in team scoring with 23 points on the season (seven goals and 16 assists) while Sinclair contributed a goal and four helpers.
In the Ontario Hockey League, another captain from Emo has hung his skates up for another year, as Luke Judson’s Belleville Bulls missed postseason play.
Judson’s 29 goals led the team, but it wasn’t enough as the Bulls finished last in the Eastern Conference and 11 points out of a playoff spot in a rebuilding year for Belleville.
Meanwhile, former Lakers’ captain Colton Kennedy had a decent run with the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League’s Melville Millionaires.
Kennedy tallied a goal and an assist in Melville’s first-round series against the Yorkton Terriers, where they fell 3-1 in the best-of-five showdown.
Kennedy came through with six goals and seven assists in 14 regular-season games for the Millionaires after being traded from the Lakers at the CJHL’s trading deadline.
Lastly, former Muskie and Jr. Sabre Mitch Cain is playing out the string with the Des Moines Buccaneers of the United States Hockey League.
The Bucs are mired in sixth-place in the division and sit 15 points out of the final West Division playoff spot with just three games to go.
The former SIJHL Defensive Forward of the Year Award winner has contributed eight points and 10 assists in 53 games with Des Moines while his minus-3 plus/minus rating places him second on the team.
