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.

The upcoming first round playoff series between the Sudbury Wolves and the Mississauga Steelheads will mark the fifth time that these franchises will have met in post-season play – granted in a couple of different incarnations of the Wolves’ opponents. After dropping the head to head matchups the first three times they battled, the northern crew finally broke through in 2018-2019, sweeping aside the Steelheads in four straight.

In terms of actual battles with the Mississauga Steelheads, Sudbury is 4-0 – as per the above (all previous playoff games did not involve the Steelheads, but rather the Majors). In 2019, Nolan Hutcheson (three goals) and Ukka-Pekka Lukkonen (29 saves) were the stars of a 5-2 game 1 win that set the tone, with Quinton Byfield chipping in with three assists.

Game two would go to overtime (3-2) as David Levin nets his second of the game for the win, with the Wolves adding victories by scores of 5-3 and 4-1 in earning the sweep. Unfortunately, the Wolves would find themselves swept aside in round two, dropping four straight to the Ottawa 67’s.

Facing what were then the Mississauga St Michael’s Majors just a year before they rebranded as the Steelheads, the Wolves fell behind 8-0 in game one at the Hershey Centre, battling back to make it respectable (8-5) as Eric O’Dell scored twice. From there, things got closer, though Sudbury could still not get over the hump.

Marcus Foligno and Eric O’Dell gave the Wolves a 2-0 lead in game two before the Majors stormed back with three straight, taking game three 6-3 and getting a series clinching overtime winner from Derek Schoenmakers in game four.

The 2004 first round series between Sudbury (8th seed) and the top ranked St Michael’s Majors was memorable for several reasons, not the least of which was the fact that it represented a first ever playoff appearance for rookie head coach Mike Foligno.

Despite a 20+ point gap in the standings, Foligno somehow managed to get his team to play close, showing signs that this would be no cakewalk with a 2-0 win in game 2 on the road as Patrick Ehelechner backstopped the team with 31 saves while Rafal Martynowski and Bobby Chaumont handled the scoring.

St Michael’s would take games three and four in Sudbury (3-1 and 2-1) but a Zack Stortini goal in double-overtime breathed new life into the Wolves, who then deadlocked the series at 3-3 with a 4-0 shutout. Game seven saw Sudbury battle back from a 3-0 deficit but in the end, a 5-2 loss was punctuated by a rare “goalie goal” courtesy of Justin Peters of the Majors.

In what was easily one of the most devastating playoff losses for the Sudbury franchise, the Wolves followed up a five game first round triumph over the Barrie Colts by jumping out to a 3-1 series lead over the Toronto St Michael’s Majors in round two, this after finishing second only to the Belleville Bulls in Eastern Conference standings in 2000-2001.

In fact, a 9-2 game four road win for Sudbury that featured a four-goal effort from Fedor Federov and offensive support from the likes of Chris Kelly, Jason Jaspers, Kip Brennan and Dan Jancevski appeared to sound the death-knell for the Majors.

Unfortunately, that was not to be as the upstart GTA crew stormed back with victories by scores of 4-2, 3-1 and 3-1 as first year coach Dave Cameron devised a game-plan that completely stymied a Wolves team that had scored 237 goals in 68 regular season games that year.