NORTHERN ONTARIO JUNIOR HOCKEY LEAGUE
NOJHL COMMUNICATIONS
MEDIA RELEASE
Release Date: Saturday, Oct. 27, 2012
Top 3 NOJHL clubs post victories
SUDBURY – The top three clubs in the Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League standings all came away with victories Saturday as the Soo Thunderbirds, North Bay Trappers and Kirkland Lake Gold Miners all skated to wins.
SOO THUNDERBIRDS 10 SUDBURY NICKEL BARONS 1 – Brandon Warmington and Anthony Miller both notched hat-tricks to help pace the league-leading Thunderbirds in the romp over the Nickel Barons at Essar Centre.
Warmington also dished two assists while Miller set-up another in the triumph with Derek Battagin tallying once and securing three helpers.
Greg Sartoretto and Adam Ritchie both had four-point nights for the Soo as Sartoretto netted a pair of markers and Ritchie had a goal and three assists.
Six of the markers by Sault Ste. Marie were scored on the power play.
David Lazarus had the lone effort for Sudbury who trailed 3-0 after one period and 6-1 following 40 minutes.
Joel Horodziejczyk turned aside 26 of 27 attempts he faced to pick up the victory in net for the Soo who won their fourth straight and improved to a NOJHL-best 12-1-1-2.
Michael Muzyka started for Sudbury and suffered the loss stopping 16 of 21 while Alex Laino gave up five goals on 16 attempts in nearly 30 minutes of relief.
NORTH BAY TRAPPERS 7 ABITIBI ESKIMOS 4 – Second place North Bay stormed out to a 3-0 lead by the five-minute mark of the contest, but need three more third period tallies to pull out the road win at Jus Jordan Arena.
Graham Pickard, Brandon Janke and Samuel Blanchet staked the Trappers to the early cushion before Dustin Jesseau notched a man advantage marker to make it 3-1 after 20 minutes.
Aaron Kerr pulled Abitibi to with one five minutes into the middle frame the Trappers’ Stephen Langford and the Eskimos Richard Therrien exchanged efforts to make it a 4-3 game after two periods of play.
Therrien’s second of the evening 1:50 into the final frame levelled the score but tallies Brennen Dubchak, Cole Klippenstein and Bradley Edwards secured the victory for North Bay.
Greg Dodds turned in a 41-save performance to register the win for the Trappers as they ran their overall record to 9-1-2-2 on the campaign.
Marc Audet and Etienne Roy combined to face 53 shots in a losing cause for Eskimos who slipped to 4-9-0-1.
KIRKLAND LAKE GOLD MINERS 5 BLIND RIVER BEAVERS 3 – The visiting Gold Miners built up a 4-0 lead and held on to win their fourth straight in a road triumph at Blind River.
Jonathon Dionne and Jordan Briand had goals to make it 2-0 Kirkland Lake.
Jean-Michel Naud then found the back of the net twice in the middle frame on assists by Briand to increase the cushion to 4-0 before Samuel Wilbur put the Beavers on the board with 50 seconds remaining in the middle session.
Corey McEwen made it a 4-2 game with 14:08 to go making it interesting, but Connor McNally added an empty-net effort to put the result out of doubt.
Fraser Atkinson rounded out the scoring in the final seconds for Blind River.
Bryden Daoust made 29 stops to secure the victory for Kirkland Lake as they remained in third spot overall raising their record to 10-5-0-1.
Aaron Cormier started in net for the Beavers making 25 saves while Brandon Currie stopped all eight shots he faced in relief.
Blind River fell to 3-9-1-2 in defeat.
