Gordon Anderson
The second-ranked team in the province made short work of the 11th-ranked Muskies yesterday afternoon.
The Denis Morris Redmen dominated physically, and possessed enough slick play-makers, to dispose of Fort High 6-1 in Pool ‘B’ action at the OFSAA ‘AAA/AAAA’ hockey tournament in St. Catharines.
The Redmen were far superior in all aspects of the game. They were much stronger, possessed a better skating game, and looked more composed than the Muskies during the contest.
It didn’t help that Fort High displayed the obvious signs of a nervous team. They were skittish with the puck and made poor decisions when they had it.
“We have a lot of young guys on this team, so we were pretty nervous,” goalie Wes Brown admitted.
“I think we were nervous,” agreed head coach Shawn Jourdain. “We ran around quite a bit and played undisciplined, which isn’t our game.”
The Redmen opened the scoring 1:50 into the first period when Taylor O’Brien deposited a rebound behind Brown.
Joshua Sizek then doubled the lead to 2-0 with 4:13 left in the first period when a he took a pass from behind the net and put Brown on the deck before going around him and backhanding the puck into the open net.
Brown was the story of the first period for the Muskies as he made a number of top shelf saves, including a nice anticipation stop on O’Brien during a Denis Morris 2-on-1.
“Wes played a good game,” Jourdain said. “There were no goals that he should have had.”
But Brown couldn’t hold on forever.
Curan Whincop made it 3-0 for Denis Morris with a power-play goal at 9:24 of the second period.
Randy Gazzola blasted a shot from the right point that Brown couldn’t corral. Whincop then glided in and picked up the rebound before chipping the puck over his left shoulder.
The Redmen then upped the lead to 4-0 with 5:46 left in the second on a 2-on-1 break.
Denis Morris goalie Justin Nichols noticed the Muskies making a bad line change so he flipped the puck to Joseph D’Eramo at the Fort Frances blueline.
He skated down the right side and slid the puck between Brown’s legs.
The Muskies had four man-advantage chances in the second period, including a 34-second 5-on-3, but only could muster two shots.
Fort High had its best scoring chance of the game with 7:54 left in the third period when David Chambers found himself alone in the slot, but he blasted the puck into the stomach of Nichols.
Goals by Christopher Maniccia and Gazzola later gave the Redmen a comfortable 6-0 lead.
Chris Cousineau spoiled Nichols’ shutout bid with a minute to go on a shot from the point through traffic.
The Muskies faced eighth-ranked St. Mary’s this morning (the outcome wasn’t known prior to press time), then will face 14th-ranked Mayfield (Caledon) this evening.
Fort High then will round out pool play tomorrow morning against 19th-ranked Widdifield (North Bay).
The top two teams from each pool advance to the quarter-finals.
