Photo By: Spencer Smye / OJHL Images

Brantford 99ers

A crowd of over 500 was in attendance last Friday when Brantford rolled into town to take on the Oakville Blades in the annual Teddy Bear Toss game to support the Oakville Firefighter’s 30th Annual Toy Drive. Our very own assistant coach, Dean De Fazio started this toy drive at his other job as a captain in the Oakville Fire Department. If you missed the game and are still looking to donate toys follow this link for more information: https://www.facebook.com/OakvilleFirefightersToyDrive/

It was the second matchup between the two teams this season, with Oakville hoping to have a similar result to the first time they met the 99ers and took home a 5-4 win. Wins are always great, but even if the Blades only scored once it would be considered a success because we’d all get to throw our stuffed bears on the ice. Luckily for us, they scored first and secured the win in a great Friday night game.

Although there were certainly plenty of shots in the 1st, we didn’t see any scoring for either team. We had to wait until the second period before we got our first taste of goals, but it was certainly worth it. Churchill received a long stretch pass in the neutral zone which would begin the rush chance. He entered the zone, and left a drop pass for the oncoming Andrew Brown who turned around and sent it to the streaking Wang who shot off his backhand straight through the five-hole of the 99ers goalie and the bears came raining down from the stands! It was all smiles as the bench cleared so that all of the players could come and pick up the huge amount of teddy bears that had been tossed onto the ice. After posing for a few pictures with the stuffed bears being donated, the team went back to the faceoff dot to try and build on their new 1 goal lead. 

Clearly still energized by their first goal, they went out and did it again 30 seconds later. After a dump and chase play Brantford tried to clear the puck up the boards, sending it directly to the awaiting Russian Gleb Akimov. Crisp, seeing this turnover, cut back towards the net and immediately got sent the puck. Making no mistake, he walked in and put it through the goalie’s legs just like Wang did not even a minute earlier. The second period was looking to be all Blades until the final couple minutes when Brantford caught a Blades defenceman too high up in the neutral zone and blew around him for a 2-on-1 that led to a shorthanded goal against. 

The 3rd period began with chances going back and forth at both ends, until the Blades began to use the cycle to keep Brantford hemmed into their own zone. Several dangerous chances were had by different players on the Oakville squad but it was ultimately Gianmarco Caringi, with his first of the year, who scored the goal to make the game 3-1 in favour of the home team. After installing himself in front of the net, he waited until a shot went off, spun around and knocked it straight through the five-hole of the 99ers goalie, the third time that’s happened on the night. Caringi let out a huge celebration and deservedly so as he had scored his first goal in his junior hockey career. 

A little further than half way through the final 20 minutes the Blades found themselves in the attacking end again and Brown made a smart play to get the puck on net as Alacaraz was passing in front. Alacaraz used his stick intelligently and slightly deflected it, you guessed it, through the legs of the other team’s goalie. Alcaraz’s goal sealed this game up and put it out of reach of the 99ers as the Blades wrapped this game up with a 4-1 victory. In two days’ time they are headed to St. Mike’s to take on the Buzzers. Full boxscore here: http://oakvilleblades_ojhl.wttstats.pointstreak.com/boxscore.html?gameid=3602551

St. Michael’s Buzzers

On a rainy Sunday afternoon in Toronto, the Oakville Blades began their longest span of road games of the season, which will span 5 games, when they lined up against the Buzzers at St. Michael’s College School Arena in York. The top scorers on either side really put on a show this game and we saw a lot of fast paced, tight checking hockey which is always entertaining to watch. This was the only time these two teams will meet in the 2022-2023 regular season and that might just be a good thing as it would turn out to be a great, yet controversial, game of hockey for both teams.

St. Mike’s would get on the board first, and fast too. Only a few minutes in they went on the power play after the Blades got called for tripping. Upon setting up in the Blades end, the defender got the puck above the left circle and unloaded, putting the Buzzers up 1-0. After the draw at center ice, the Blades dumped the puck in the other end and some nice fore-checking by Jack Churchill led to Matthew Wang being able to pick up the puck behind the net. He changed direction once to shake off a defenceman behind the net and after another couple seconds cut back to the original way he was heading for a wide open wraparound opportunity.  He caught the goalie not playing tight to his post and found the twine only 19 seconds after the Buzzer’s had originally scored. 

Wang wasn’t even close to being done racking up points on the night however. 3 minutes later on a faceoff he lined up behind Johnston on the faceoff rather than on the left side of the dot and it really paid off, After Johnston won the draw, Wang took 2 quick strides to get to the puck and quickly transitioned it from backhand to forehand, and rifled it low blocker side for his second goal of the night only 7 minutes into the game. The Blades would keep this goal advantage through the remainder of the first and head to the dressing up 2-1.

In the opening minutes of the second, St. Michael’s scored first again. A little under 5 minutes into the middle period they would convert off of a cross ice pass that was one-timed home past McCarthy. Even though Oakville didn’t respond right away as they sometimes do, they responded in a huge way as the period started to wind down. The Blades top line broke out on a 2-on-1 and instead of passing Johnston took the shot which thudded off the pad of the goalie. He then collected his own rebound and as he went behind the net he banked it off the back of the goalie it went into the net. The Blades were back in the lead now being up 3-2. Exactly one minute later Gleb Akimov took matters into his own hands. He got the puck at the other team’s blue line and began to charge in. He had tons of space and made full use of it by walking in a ripping one high shirt side that the Buzzer’s goalie didn’t stand a chance of stopping. 4-2 in favour of Oakville.

The last period can only be described as crazy. Near the beginning of the period Wells got a boarding penalty as the St. Mike’s player turned at the very last second and was run into the boards by his numbers. The 2 minute penalty that he received was not the right call in the minds of the home crowd as they began taking their frustration out against the officials and Wells by yelling at them from the stands and even the commentators weighed in saying it should have been a game misconduct in their minds. They got their power play and didn’t score through most of it. With only a couple seconds left a break with Wang and Alcaraz spawned and Wang sent the puck to Alcaraz who had beat his man to the net and tried to tap the puck in before it rolled off his stick. When he looked up, it was too late to stop and he tried his best to minimize the impact but ended up bumping into the Buzzers goalie, knocking him over. This seemingly accidental play had Alcaraz kicked out of the game and sent the Buzzers to the man advantage for 5 minutes. 

The Blades would kill off this major penalty only to be scored on with 3 minutes left after another Blades player got sent to the box for hooking. All St. Mike’s needed was one more goal to force this to overtime. As you can imagine, these last 5 minutes were played with a lot of safety from Oakville and a lot of aggression from the other side as they pushed for a goal. As the chances rained on net, McCarthy stood tall through all of it with excellent rebound control and fantastic positioning. He sealed this game off for Oakville almost single-handedly and the Blades skated out of the weekend with 4 points to their name. 

Oakville, obviously happy with their team performance, saluted the crowd in St. Michael’s which included many Blades fans who had come out to watch. One of the players even let out a big chuckle as he watched one of the St. Michael’s fans who had been giving the Oakville bench grief the entire game walked out of the arena, furious with their loss. Full boxscore here: http://oakvilleblades_ojhl.wttstats.pointstreak.com/boxscore.html?gameid=3602839

We’ll get to see the team hit the ice next in Burlington on Friday, December 2nd for the second game of this span of road games. It is also their Pink in the Rink game. They are raising funds for the Canadian Cancer Society in support of breast cancer research and programs. 

By Ty Brooks