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.

After not facing the Barrie Colts in any one of their first 41 home openers, the Sudbury Wolves will open the 2024-2025 campaign opposite their divisional rivals for the third time in the past 11 years. (in fairness, the Colts did not enter the Ontario Hockey League until 1995 – but still did not visit Sudbury for game one of the season until 2013).

The Wolves have split their two previous home opener with the “Ponies”, racking up a 5-3 win in 2013 (Connor Crisp and Dominik Kubalik scored two goals each for Sudbury) before being trimmed 6-5 in 2022, falling behind 5-2 after two before making a game of it in the third.

The Wolves take a home opener record of 26-23-1-1-0 into the contest Friday night, having won eight of their last eleven to make their way above the .500 mark. Last year at this time, the Wolves surrendered a goal to Nick Lardis just 35 seconds in, were down 2-1 early in the second but roared back to score five straight in taking down the Brantford Bulldogs 6-2 at the Sudbury Arena.

Chase Coughlan scored twice for the Wolves in that game, accounting for 20% of his season total, a bar that the 19 year-old native of Toronto looks certain to surpass this year – possibly even double. Of the 51 home openers in franchise history, only four have taken place in October – with all others squeezed between September 15th (2001 vs Mississauga) and September 30th (2022 vs Barrie).

For the first time in franchise history, the Sudbury Wolves are carrying a three game winning streak in road openers into a new season of play, having beaten the Soo Greyhounds (6-3 – October 9th, 2021), the Mississauga Steelheads (6-2 – October 2nd, 2022) and the Peterborough Petes (4-0 – October 5th, 2023) in recent years.

Preparing to face the Soo Greyhounds Saturday night in the Lock City, the local juniors are coming off their first ever shutout in a road opener and now sport a record of 15-30-2-3-0 in this first encounter of every year away from the confines of Sudbury Arena (keeping in mind that tie games existed at one point)

The contest on Saturday will signal the fourth time the Wolves have faced the Soo Greyhounds in their first away game of the year, losing in 1995 (7-4) and 2013 (10-3), but hitting the win column in 2021, as noted above. The 2023 matchup with the Petes featured a 33-save shutout effort from Jakub Vondras with Owen Protz, Nick Yearwood, Kieron Walton and Evan Konyen supplying the offense.

In terms of milestones to watch, the likes of Quentin Musty (assuming he returns from San Jose – 21st in both career assists and points) and Kocha Delic (32 games shy of 200 OHL games; 21 goals away from cracking top-25 at 90 goals; 45 points away from top-25 at 207 points) should be well worth keeping eyes on – although others are sure to hit some significant numbers this year.