By Ron Valentine

The Wellington Dukes now know who they’ll play at the Dudley-Hewitt Cup in Dryden next week.

The four-team tourney runs from May 1-5 in the Northwestern Ontario town – 1,895 km from Prince Edward County, home the OJHL-champion Dukes.

The Dudley champs advance to the RBC Cup in Chilliwack, BC, from May 12-21.

Let’s take a look at the Wellington opposition:

DRYDEN G.M. ICE DOGS

The host club for the Dudley-Hewitt Cup is the DRYDEN G.M. ICE DOGS, one of their league's charter members. They were also regular season champions of the six-team Superior International Junior Hockey League.

In the 56-game regular season, they finished with 88 points, two more than the second place Thief River (Minnesota) Norskies, scoring 272 goals and allowing 148. The SIJHL includes four Ontario teams plus two in Minnesota.

They were the most-penalized squad with 1,073 minutes. The club's average attendance in the regular campaign was 396, but that increased in the finals to 900-1,100 per game. In the playoffs, following a first round bye they took the Fort Frances Lakers four games to two and in round 3- the League final for the Bill Salonen Cup, they bested the Thunder Bay North Stars 4 games to 2. It was their second straight Cup victory.

The club plays at the Dryden Memorial Arena and is coached by Kurt Walsten from Kenora who is in his fourth season. Defenceman Trevor Kavanaugh is the team captain. OJHL connections on the club include forward Kris Hamlin, a former Hamilton Red Wing/Stouffville Spirit forward, and Dakotah Woods, who played four games for the Aurora Tigers. Markham Royals' sharpshooter Braedyn Aubin spent two seasons in Dryden and teammate Sam Marit one. Tigers' Chris Atanas was there for one season.

Jacen Bracko led the club and the league in the regular season with 48 goals and 33 assists. Minnesotan Eric Stout had 57 points and B.C.'s Evan Walls 50. In the post-season, Ted Davis, named League playoff MVP and the scorer of the goal that got the team Dudley-bound, and Edmonton native Malcolm Huemmert each had 12 points. In goal, Jacob Gnidziejko and Landon Pavlisin combined for a 2.44 goals-against average. In their playoffs, Pavlisin was 2.35 in eight games and Gnidziejko 2.73 in four. 

I talked to the president of the club, Mike Sveinson, and he was quick to point out that this will be the Ice Dogs third appearance in four years at the 'Dudley' and is hoping that it will be the best yet for them. They have the luxury, he said, of being able to sleep in their own beds and of not having to make long bus trips to the tournament. This year they have tried to add more skill and speed to the squad and he feels they have a much more balanced team that can get offense from any line. The blueline is a little bigger and they have an interesting “problem” in goal with two top keepers. They signed Davis in January as a free agent – he played the previous season in Niagara Falls. It was their last card and obviously it has worked out very well. Coach Walsten thinks eats and breathes hockey, the president noted. He is a hockey guy, through and through and gets the best out of the players.

Dryden has got behind the Cup in a big way, he said, and expects full houses especially with two teams from the SIJHL involved. The fans have been spectacular throughout the season and playoffs, he said. To hoist the Cup, he noted that they cannot take one minute off in a period, go into the dressing room, regroup and go out and do the same again, game after game and keep their physical presence strong.

The birthplaces on the Dryden roster (five provinces and four states are represented) comes out of necessity, Mike said, since the size of Dryden (7,700 or thereabouts) precludes fielding a squad of local players. Forward Trey Palermo and blueliner Graham Oliphant are Dryden-born. 

THUNDER BAY NORTH STARS

The 'other team' from the SIJHL in the tournament is the THUNDER BAY NORTH STARS coached by Rob Degagne. He is in his first season behind the bench after taking over from Jeremy Adduono. The club plays out of the Fort William Gardens. where for their playoff Game 3 against Dryden they attracted 1,380 fans, 1,580 attended Game 4 and over 1,100 the final game, six. Veteran blueliner Joe Newhouse is the team captain. They had three scorers with 60 points or more in the regular season: Alex Maticic ended with 65, Avery Siau had 63 and Bradley Thrower 60. The playoff point-scoring parade was led by Ryan Mignault, obtained early in the season from the Melville Millionaires in Saskatchewan, and Thrower with 18 points each and Kyle Auger with 15. In the net for the regular campaign, Brandon Bodnar and Dougie Newhouse combined for a 2.88 GAA. Bodnar was the goalie of choice in the playoffs, starting all but one of the 14 games and ending with a 2.01 GAA. He played two seasons for the Fort Frances Lakers before joining the North Stars for his final one. After game three of the finals it was announced by the League that Siau, was given an indefinite suspension for an alleged postgame assault on the Dryden head coach. Siau was not dressed for that game as he was already serving a one-game suspension.

The team is comprised of almost all Thunder Bay-born players. In the OJHL connection department, Jake Behse played 33 games this season past for the Trenton Golden Hawks. The Fort William North Stars – with current St. Louis Blues Carter Hutton and Robert Bortuzzo on board – claimed the Cup on home ice in 2006. The Thunder Bay Flyers, who played out of the USHL, won it four times between 1989 and 1995.

COCHRANE CRUNCH

Representing the Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League will be the Copeland-McNamara Trophy-winning COCHRANE CRUNCH.

Cochrane GM/Coach and Sault Ste. Marie native Ryan Leonard is a name well-known as a franchise owner and coach/manager in Northern Ontario hockey circles. On his resume: the Thessalon Flyers, Blind River Beavers, Elliot Lake Bobcats and now season No. 4 with the Crunch. They finished 19 points behind the Powassan VooDoos in regular season East Division action winning 36 of 56 games.

In the playoffs, the Crunch topped the Kirkland Lake Gold Miners 4 games to 1, the Timmins Rock (who toppled the VooDoos) by the same count and then in the championship final they beat the Rayside-Balfour Junior Canadians 4 games to 2 after dropping the first pair of games. Three went into overtime including last night’s Game 6 – a 2-1 victory for the Crunch. which featured the winner in the second extra time session from Austin Whelan and a 62-save performance from Shane Battler plus 66 stops by Rayside (and ex-Hamilton Red Wings, Cobourg Cougars and Aurora Tigers) goaltender Brayden Lachance.  Illinois-born Kyle Herbster was an 86-point scorer (including 36 goals) in the regular campaign, tops in the league. Austin Stauffer weighed in with 32 goals.

In the post-season, Herbster led the way again. Battler, familiar to Southern Ontario hockey fans, as he played in the GOJHL for the Sarnia Legionnaires and the Fort Erie Meteors, and Regina native Taylor Unruh divided regular season duties in goal and they had a GAA of 2.94. They lowered that to 1.80 in the playoffs.

Defenceman Thomas Hernandez played the 2016-2017 campaign with the Pickering Panthers and another blueliner Zach Jones spent the same season with the Kingston Voyageurs. Zach Anderson who played for the Panthers and Oakville this season was a Cruncher for two campaigns. Rory Milne, who played for Whitby and Wellington this season, spent a half a year in Cochrane.

The Crunch captain, in his third season in that role, is Connor Lovie from Mt. Brydges ON. The team plays out of the Tim Horton's Event Centre in town, the scene of their NOJHL Championship victory. They will be hosts to the 2019 edition of the Dudley-Hewitt Cup.

The last SIJHL club to hoist the trophy were the Minnesota Wilderness in 2013. The NOJHL's Soo Thunderbirds won it in 2012 and 2015. The Rayside-Balfour Sabrecats were the winners three times between 1997 and 2002 and were the losing finalists in the other three years.