Lucas Punkari
With a strong performance at both ends of the ice here Saturday night, the Muskie boys’ hockey team find themselves with a chance to capture their seventh-straight NorWOSSA crown.
Following a 4-0 shutout over the Kenora Broncos in their one-game semi-final showdown, the black-and-gold earned the right to battle the St. Thomas Aquinas Saints (Kenora) in a two-game, total-goal series for the league title.
The opening game of the series took place last night in Kenora (the outcome wasn’t known as of press time), with the second leg to be held here this Friday at 7:15 p.m.
“Coming home for that second game will be great, especially in a series like this,” said Muskie head coach Ed Vold.
“Hopefully, we are not in a situation where we have to work our way back after the first game in Kenora,” he added.
“But it’ll be nice to have the chance to win it at home in front of our fans.”
The final will mark the first time the Muskies have played the Saints since the black-and-gold dropped a 5-3 decision to them back on Jan. 29 in Kenora.
“We have a bit of a rivalry with them now, especially after we lost to them up there,” noted Muskie forward Dylan Curtis.
“But if we keep our heads up, and do as well as we did on defence against the Broncos, we will be fine,” said teammate Graeme Kitt.
The Muskies headed into the final after turning in a strong showing in the semi-finals here Saturday night, when almost every aspect of their game was firing on all cylinders.
“It was a tough game but we knew that it would be like that coming in,” said Vold.
“Kenora is a tough team that is well-coached and one that is big and physical, so we knew that we had to use our speed against them,” he added.
“We put a few different things into our game plan to try and stretch the ice out a little bit, and I thought we did a good job of that.”
The Muskies opened the scoring late in the first period when Curtis beat Broncos’ goalie Jordan Spencer with a shot top corner.
“It was really exciting to get that goal,” said Curtis, who praised linemate Tyler Mosbeck’s slick feed that set up the opening marker.
“The crowd was really into it when we scored, and that gave us some momentum that we were able to just keep building off of,” he added.
The Muskies had numerous scoring chances to try and extend their lead throughout the second period, but many of their shots were turned aside by the glove hand of Spencer.
“We thought that we had him figured out, but the boys kept shooting at his glove hand and we proved how good that glove he has really is all night,” Vold recalled.
“Jordan has been great for us all year and he really has been the backbone for our team,” noted Broncos’ head coach James Cain.
But while Spencer was keeping the Broncos in the game, his teammates were unable to solve Muskie netminder Ryan Ferguson.
“The puck was bouncing around and went through the crease a couple of times, and if we would had one of those shots go in, it would have been a different game,” reasoned Cain.
The Broncos would rue those missed opportunities at the midway point of the third period, when Kitt found the back of the net for the first time this season to make it 2-0.
“It was pretty nice to get my first career goal like that and to get that monkey off of my back,” Kitt smiled.
“Chase [Ferguson] was doing a really nice job cycling the puck and he gave me a real nice pass,” he added.
“I got in front of the net and decided to shoot down low to the blocker side as I knew that he [Spencer] had a really good glove hand.”
Ferguson and Nolan Vold rounded out the Muskie scoring a few minutes later, bringing an end to the season for the fourth-ranked Broncos.
“I don’t think we had our legs out from under us at the start,” Cain admitted.
“Fort Frances came out skating and we really didn’t,” he noted. “And with a few of the injuries that our guys have had, we just didn’t have it today.
“We do have a few guys that will be leaving us,” Cain added.
“But we had a number of Grade 10 players that will be here for a couple more years, so we are really looking forward to the future.”
