Minor Midgets Play Well - Secure Two of Possible Four Points, News, Minor Midget, 2012-2013 (Grey-Bruce Highlanders AAA Minor Hockey Association)

    This week the Stephens Equipment AAA Highlanders had a couple of challenging games on tap, starting with the Brampton 45's in a November 21st Wednesday night tilt at Earnscliffe Recreation Centre.  The two teams have faced off three times this season, splitting the first two games with a 3-2 win and 1-0 loss for the Highlanders.  The third game was a 4-1 loss to Brampton in the Waterloo Gold Cup tournament, so the Highlanders went into this latest match looking to even the record up.

The game started off quite unexpectedly different from the Highlanders intentions, with Brampton getting the first goal only about a minute and thirty seconds into the opening period.  The Highlanders had a chance to get back even during the first period when the 45's had a four minute penalty to kill but the Stephens Equipment crew only generated a couple of scoring chances.  With five minutes left in the first period, Brampton struck again when a quick pass out from the corner was re-directed into the Highlanders net, opening up a 2-0 lead for the 45’s.

 

This lead held up until the last 5 minutes of the second period.  With a man advantage the Highlanders Garrett McFadden scored from the top of the right side face-off circle with a blistering slap-shot to help the Highlanders close to within one goal of the Brampton home team.  The Highlanders manufactured a number of good scoring chances throughout the game in which the visitors could have tied things up but couldn’t close the deals and ended up going  home with a 2-1 loss.

 

The second game for this week was played in Chesley, November 25^th Sunday afternoon against the totally revamped 2012-2013 Halton Hurricanes.  The bi-weekly OMHA Minor Midget AAA Top five Rankings for this week, selected by a panel of Ontario Hockey League scouts, had the Hurricanes slotted into second place after the Oakville Rangers.  So the Highlanders had their work cut out for them and were anxious to show up the visiting team.

 

            It started out well as the Highlanders quickly put the pressure on, but had trouble getting shots on net as the Halton team responded with an aggressive defense in their own end and kept many of the shots to the outside.  At the mid-point of the first period Halton scored to open up a 1-0 lead and the goal seemed to give the Hurricanes a boost as they started to keep the more of the play down in the Highlanders end of the ice.  With a little more than a minute and a half left in the period, the Highlanders found themselves down 2-0 going into the second period. 

 

The second period saw both teams pretty close in play, giving a bit of an edge to the home team, but no goals were recorded.  Then with just over three minutes played into the third, a retaliation hit from a Halton player landed him in the box with a double minor and an extra 10 minutes for an emotional outburst that did not sit well with the referee.  After Halton killed the first minor penalty off, Jamison Buck picked up the puck from Andrew Turnbull and skated into the Halton end - toe dragging the puck past one of the Hurricane defenders - and went in on the goal to beat the Halton goalie high on the short side for the Highlanders first goal.  That play picked up the spirits of the home team and fans, and almost three minutes later Brady Anderson buried the puck into an open net after a series of attempts on the goal to tie the game up.  Ethan Skinner and Turnbull played a big part in getting the tying goal and were duly rewarded with assists.  With the boast in their morale, the Stephens Equipment team kept up the pressure and with 4:32 left in the period, off a Halton blue line face-off won by Trevor Nevidomskis and passed by Anderson to the far right side where Skinner received the puck, skated in over the blue line and fired a deadly slap shot that blew by the Halton goalie to put the Highlanders up 3-2.  The Hurricanes attempted to pull out a tie out of the hat like they did last time when they visited the home team but this time did not have the benefit of a 6-on-3 man advantage – with the goalie pulled – and so the Stephens Equipment team won with the final 3-2 score.

 

            The Stephens Equipment Highlanders next games will be played Saturday and Sunday December 1^st and 2^nd  at home in Chesley, with the first game against the Brampton 45’s at 3:30 pm and the second game against the Guelph Storm at 2:30 pm.