By: Markham Royals Staff

Jan 13, 2019: MARKHAM, ON: The Royals capped off a 3 game weekend on Sunday afternoon with a win to move into 1st place in the North Division, passing the idle Aurora Tigers.

On Friday, the boys played a tough game against the visiting Cobourg Cougars. Prior to the game, Alessio Luciani was presented with his POM award by OJHL Communications Director Jim Manson and Royals Scout Andy Mayer. The Cougars took the lead early in the 2nd period, before the Royal’s tied it with Alessio Luciani’s 23rd goal of the season. It was the only time the Royals could find the back of the net, as the Cougars were able to take the lead late in the third period and then shut the Royals offence down. It was an action packed, back and forth game, battled out to the very end with the Cougars taking the 2-1 win. With the new schedule layout introduced at the beginning of the season, this was the first and only meeting of the season.

On Saturday the boys battled it out in Aurora, with the top spot in the North Division on the line. It would be the Tigers however, that would get off to a good start in this one, scoring twice in the 1st period. With the Royals trailing 2-0 going into the 2nd period, they would find their mojo and with two goals from Nick Giunta, the Royals stormed back to tie the game and pushed the Tigers to the limit. It was a late surge, finished off by a Zac Sirota goal with 21 seconds left in the game, that gave the Royals a huge win over their Divisional rivals. The win gave the Royals 44 points in the standings, tying the Tigers with the same total, and one game in hand.

That game in hand came on Sunday afternoon when the Royals faced the Stouffville Spirit. The boys were challenged to make their weekend record 2-1 - while also taking the top spot in the North Division on short rest. The Spirit would go ahead early on with a goal in the 1st period just under 2 minutes in. The Royals quickly came back with Braedyn Aubin’s 21st goal of the season tying it all up, and then Nick Davis’ goal late in the 1st, gave the boys a one-goal lead heading into the 2nd period. The two teams engaged in more of back and forth action which lead to each team trading goals, and the Royals took a 3-2 lead to the final period.

Things got interesting when the Royals were awarded a penalty shot, and the attempt was taken by Nick Davis. He would score on the attempt, but because the Spirit goaltender knocked the net off, Davis was awarded a second shot. He would score a second time, beating the goalie and making it a 4-2 hockey game. After an extremely eventful 3rd period, with Stouffville making it a 1 goal hockey game, followed by Orlando Mainolfi and Nick Giunta’s goals to make it a 6-3 hockey game. The Royals played strong till the very end and came out with the big win 6-4, giving them sole possession of 1st place in the North Division with a record of 20-14-2-4.