Photo Credit: Tim Bates / OJHL Images

Mississauga Chargers

2023 is here, and the Blades are looking to trend upwards in the standings after a rocky first half of the season. They opened the year at home against the Chargers who are a team that falls below Oakville in the standings. Despite the Blades controlling play for the majority of the game, the score remained very close throughout. An entire 70 minutes was played, leaving us with plenty of hockey to watch, but no eventual winner in the end as the game would result in a tie at 2-2. It was clear that the Blades were looking to get 2 points out of this matchup, but 1 will have to do this time. 

Mississauga got an early 1-0 lead not even 5 minutes in and they extended it to 2 later in the period when nobody could find the puck. The Chargers had made a sneaky pass behind the back of McCarthy that saw the puck go into the net shortly thereafter. It took until there were only 10 seconds left in the period, and their 3rd power play of the night, for the Blades to capitalize on the shots they had been pouring on net. It was Gleb Akimov, who has been riding the hot hand as of late, which put him in tight to the net so that he could capitalize on a rebound opportunity. The goal was assisted by Crisp and McKenna who was making his return to play after a shoulder injury had kept him out of the lineup ever since December 3rd in Collingwood. 

To make a long story short, nobody found the back of the net in the 2nd period. Plenty of shots went both ways but it was the period of the goalies as they shut the doors. As has become commonplace, our beloved #74 in net was fantastic between the pipes. Stopping 35/37 left him with a .946 SV% as he continued to be brilliant for the Blades.

Once we reached the 3rd period, the Blades were beginning to realize that they were going to need to try much harder if they wanted to stay in this game with Mississauga. Even with all the shots they were able to get on net (they ended the game with 48 shots on goal) they were having difficulties solving the Chargers goalie. So, Oakville played one of the oldest, and most effective, tricks in the book. They clogged up the goalie’s vision. Only 5:23 into the 3rd, it worked as big Jack Churchill scored a deflection goal off of a shot from McKenna. #7 proved that he was very much ready for his return to action notching 2 assists in this game.

The game cruised into overtime and made its way out of extra minutes with the same score simply because both goalies were too sharp to allow anything else to go in. Due to that, both teams walked away with a point in this matchup, even if that’s not the outcome Oakville was searching for. As a result of the tie, we will have to wait another season before we see the Chargers again, as this was the one and only game we play against them this year. Next stop, Mold-Masters SportsPlex, for a matchup against the Georgetown Raiders on the 7th of January.

Georgetown Raiders

After getting lost trying to find my way around Mold-Masters SportsPlex, I finally found the right doors to get into the Halton rivals game at the Gordon Alcott Arena side of the building. Little was anyone in the building aware that it was going to be one of the most turbulent games that either of those teams had played all year. In total there were 7 goals, 67 shots, 53 penalty minutes, countless big saves by Gavin McCarthy, multiple fights and a linesman that got punched in the face. 

In the first period, it was a really poor start for Oakville. At the end of the period it was already 3-0 Georgetown and with how many gigantic desperation saves McCarthy made, it could easily have been more. Georgetown currently sits 3rd in the Conference and displayed why they do in the first 20 minutes of the game. A couple roughing penalties were dished out this period but after multiple chances neither team converted on the power play showing that the Blades would need to do better at even strength if they wanted to hang in this game. 

Six power plays in the 2nd resulted in a singular goal, but this time it was for your Oakville Blades. They flipped the script in the 2nd and completely shut down the flurry of goal scoring that the Raiders displayed in the opening frame. Just like the day before against the Chargers, it was in the dying seconds of the period when up on the man advantage that they would score. After a clean faceoff win, the puck slipped out to Andrew Brown who walked in and faked the shot, sending it perfectly to wide open Cole McKenna. McKenna absolutely hammered this puck right past the Raiders goaltender, who was looking around in confusion long after the puck found the back of the net. 

Unfortunately, everything destabilized from there. Oakville came into the 3rd period flying and dominated possession for the opening 5 minutes, but never scored. All the Raiders needed was one good chance and they capitalized, extending their lead to 4-1. After this point, it was chaos after whistles. Little slashes, cross-checks and shoves were being dished out left and right by both squads. It all boiled over with 15:03 expired, shortly after Georgetown made it 5-1. A very clear boarding penalty that saw Luc Modry fall victim to a dirty hit sparked an immediate reaction from all of his Blades teammates on the ice. 

All of the Blades players went after the Raiders forward who illegally checked Big Mo. The Georgetown players also came flying in to find themselves dance partners and it was on. Scraps broke out all over the ice. The linesmen ran in to break the fights up and one of them accidentally caught a missed punch directly in the face and went down. This only further added to the chaos of this play. With only 5 minutes remaining in the game, we finished it with only one linesman and a final score of 6-1 for Georgetown. The linesman is doing well, but our record took another hit as we put this one into the loss column. 

Our next game is an away match at the Wayne Gretzky Sports Centre in Brantford as we line up against the 99ers for another intra-conference meeting. The game is a regular Brantford Thursday home game, taking place on the 12th of January at 7:30 PM. This will be the last game before  Gleb Akimov, Andrew Brown and Matthew Wang head off to Collingwood to participate in the InStat Top Prospects game as part of the OJHL All-Star Celebration Weekend. We will head off to North York to face the Rangers on Sunday.

By Ty Brooks