Muskies look forward to next chance at OFSAA

The Muskie boys’ hockey team played their annual “town” versus “country” game here Monday before packing up their locker room and officially declaring the season over.
The team returned from the all-Ontarios in London on Saturday after failing to get out of their pool.
“It’s a very long, tiring week,” said head coach Shane Bliss, who competed at OFSAA twice as a player for the black-and-gold in 1986 and 1989. “I think I slept less as a coach than I did as a player.”
The Muskies, ranked fourth going into the tournament, were in Pool ‘D’ with the Our Lady of Mount Carmel Crusaders (fifth seed), the Leaside Lancers (12th), Orangeville Bears (13th), and Fr. John Redmond Redhawks (20th).
As reported in last week’s Times, the Muskies opened the tournament Wednesday morning with a 3-3 tie against Orangeville after having fallen behind 3-0.
David Pierce (Steven Sus/Alex McQuarrie), Sus (Jordan Bale), and Brian White (Tyler Miller) scored for the black-and-gold.
Then that afternoon, Fort High lost 5-1 to the Lancers, with Terry Kellar notching the team’s lone goal, unassisted, in the third period.
Jason Green and Mat Gamsby shared duties between the pipes.
“Not what we were hoping for on day one,” Bliss said afterwards.
The team then faced a pair of must-win games Thursday—but only got halfway there.
Pierce scored four goals, with Kurtis Wepruk and Greg Flewelling adding the others, as the Muskies downed the Redhawks 6-2 in the afternoon.
Larson assisted on all four of Pierce’s goals, Sus helped out on three of them, and Bale picked up the other assist.
Josh Sigurdson and White drew assists on Wepruk’s goal while Wepruk and Jacob Esselink assisted on Flewelling’s tally.
Rookie Cody Wood earned the win in goal for the Muskies.
But then Fort High saw their season come to an abrupt end that evening when they fell 7-0 to a very physical Crusaders team. Wood was replaced by Green midway through the game, but the score already was out of reach.
“It seemed like our guys were getting mauled on the way to the net and if they tapped a guy’s shin after the whistle, they were going to the box,” said Bliss.
Two of the teams in the Muskies’ pool made it all the way to the medal round, with Leaside losing 3-2 to the St. Michael’s Double Blues to earn silver. The Bears, meanwhile, lost to the Notre Dame Fighting Irish in the bronze-medal game.
Bliss said it made him feel pretty good to know they were in such a strong pool at OFSAA.
“We probably didn’t play our best game against those two teams,” he said. “You’ve got to be really pumped up for every game.”
Bliss hoped his team learned from this tournament so they can go back next year. “We need to be stronger, physically stronger,” he noted. “If you make a mistake, it really costs you big time.”
Looking back over the season, Bliss said he would not give up any of the 55 games the team ended up playing.
“I hope that, especially the newer players, learned that high school hockey in Fort Frances is still a great place to play,” he said.
The Muskies will lose Terry and Mark Kellar, Flewelling, Mike Niskala, Kyle McTavish, Gamsby, and Green to graduation, which Bliss said is about average for a season.
“We only really have to fill in four positions,” he said. “We’ve got three experienced lines coming back.”
As for the town vs. country game, the country crew continued their winning streak.