T’hawks to face Thistles tonight

Lucas Punkari

The Fort Frances Thunderhawks will be up against a very familiar tonight in the quarter-finals of the Allan Cup.
After going winless in their two round-robin games to finish third in Division I, the T’hawks will battle the host Kenora Thistles, who were second in Division II with a 1-1 record, for a berth in the semi-finals tomorrow.
The puck drops at 8 p.m.
The two teams have squared off five times already this season heading into tonight’s game, with the T’hawks losing the series 4-1.
Their lone victory over the Thistles came back on Jan. 11.
“I would suspect it’s going to be more of the same in another renewal of the rivalry, but there’s a lot more on the line this time,” Thunderhawks’ assistant coach Randy White noted.
“It’s obvious that they have a good team, and I think that was proven with how they performed in the round-robin.
“We know it’s going to be a tough game, but I think we’re going to be ready,” White added.
After opening play with a 6-3 setback to the South East Prairie Thunder (Manitoba) on Monday afternoon, the T’hawks then fell 3-1 to the Clarenville Caribous (Newfoundland) on Tuesday.
“We’ve been using the round-robin as a measuring stick, and we’re very close,” White stressed.
“We were up 2-1 against South East, and we were in pretty good shape at that point, but we made three bad [defensive] pinches and found ourselves down in a hurry,” he recalled.
“In our second game against Clarenville, we took some penalties which hurt us and they scored three power-play goals as a result.
“But we were still really putting it to them in the third period,” White reasoned.
The T’hawks also will be short a man up front tonight. A.J. Tucker is gone for the rest of the tournament with a collapsed lung, which he suffered on a hit during the first period of Tuesday’s game against Clarenville.
“He tried to keep playing after that, and we didn’t even know how serious it was until we went to the hospital afterwards,” White noted.
Another player who’s currently banged up is defenceman Josh Meyers, who has an undisclosed upper body injury.
Whether he plays tonight will be a game-time decision.
The other quarter-final, which goes this afternoon, pits the Prairie Thunder (second in Division I) versus the Dundas Real McCoys (Ontario), who were third in Division II.
Awaiting the winners are the Caribous and the Bentley Generals (Alberta), who topped their respective divisions to earn byes to tomorrow’s Friday’s semi-finals.
The final will go Saturday at 3 p.m. at the Kenora Recreation Centre.