As part of my role as team statistician for the Sudbury Wolves, my job description includes the preparation of weekly media notes, featuring various tidbits of information regarding upcoming games.

While these notes have generally been confined to circulating among media types and club officials, it seemed likely that fans of the local OHL team might also have an interest in the odds and ends that I might come across on a weekly basis.

A steady slate of midweek games dot the Sudbury Wolves’ schedule this month, meaning that coach Ken MacKenzie and company had best be ready for three games a week more often than not through to the beginning of March. Of course, they will gladly take this over a stream of three in threes, or three games in four nights.

The Wolves will be looking to even the season series at two games apiece when Sudbury and Sault Ste Marie meet Wednesday in the Nickel City, the Hounds recording a 7-4 win at home in November and a 3-2 OT win in early December on the road before the locals took advantage of a 33-save performance from Marcus Vandenberg, stopping the Saultites 5-1 on December 30th.

Yet for as much as these two teams have now surpassed the 350 game mark in head to head battles – and that only includes their time in the OHL – they have met only once in post-season play. In March/April of 1975, the Wolves took the eight point series by a count of 9-5, a matchup that featured a 4-4 overtime tie on April 3rd.

Of course, with Sudbury currently showing the way in the Eastern Conference and Sault Ste Marie sitting third in the West currently, it is not outside of the realm of possibilities that this date with destiny is duplicated this spring.

With the Eastern Conference race at a stage where the top six teams are separated by a mere seven points, there simply isn’t any time for the Sudbury lads to feel sorry at all for a rebuilding Niagara Ice Dogs team that is currently avoiding the cellar of the OHL by just two points, thanks to the Windsor Spitfires.

It took some late-game heroics from Quentin Musty and company but the Wolves managed to make it four wins in four tries with the Ice Dogs last Thursday in St Catharines, with 17 year-old Kevin He netting a pair of markers for the Dogs as he targets the 30-goal plateau this year (currently at 24).

As the Sudbury Wolves and Mississauga Steelheads meet for the fifth time this year at the home of the soon-to-be moved GTA crew (both teams have won twice), the keys to this contest are not particularly difficult to unveil.

The Pack have scored a whopping 62 more goals than have the Steelheads, who hold a healthy advantage in goals against, surrendering 28 less red-lamp lightings than the northern lads.

This pattern has been in place for a few years now, with Mississauga enjoying much success against the Wolves in 2021-2022, holding the locals to three goals or less in seven of eight encounters. Sudbury would break through last year, recording victories of 6-2 and 8-4 and have continued to enjoy offensive outbursts, at times, opposite goaltenders Ryerson Leenders, posting wins of 5-2 and 6-3 this year.