Leading into the start of Big Nickel Hockey Tournament action last Thursday, this scribe and others had noted at least two very interesting storylines with this 44th edition of the early November Sudbury tradition – namely:
1) with no higher ranked teams in the U15 AAA field of five this year, the Sudbury Wolves were in a good position to certainly advance to the final, if not add another entry to the listing of local squads who would prevail in front of the nickel city faithful
2) with an impressive field of 26 U18 AAA teams that featured six of the top ten teams in the province, there was a very high likelihood of fans being treated to some incredible hockey in this age bracket
In the end, Big Nickel Hockey 2024 delivered on both counts.
For as much as the U18 championship encounter was a tad one-sided – the Markham Waxers bounced the Waterloo Wolves 6-1 Sunday afternoon – the fact remains that this division produced no less than nine games that were decided in overtime or a shootout, including both semi-finals on Sunday.
“I thought our team was resilient the whole weekend,” noted Markham head coach Dan Daoust, the 64 year-old Montreal native and veteran of more than 500 NHL games, all but four enjoyed with the Toronto Maple Leafs. “We have ten forwards and five “D” – and one of our D was suspended for two games.”
A hat-trick from Ulysses Lombardi as well as tallies from Justin Anselmo, Kyle Butt and Zachary Gardner propelled the Waxers past the Wolves as Markham got up early and did not let up – much to the delight of coach Daoust.
“Our team scored a lot of goals (this weekend), which isn’t always the case,” noted the man who has been involved with the Markham organization for pretty much a quarter century now, the bulk of his most recent time spent with this particularly age grouping (U18).
That kind of experience can lead to a great deal of familiarity with those adversaries who tend to stick around on tournament Sundays.
“We’ve played them (Waterloo) before, in Ottawa this year and last year, at the OHFs in Sault Ste Marie – and with the same coach,” said Daoust. “We knew the style they were going to play and they knew the style we were going to play as well. We came out strong and made some good shots.”
“I know their goaltender (Brock Schaus) has been drafted in the OHL (12 round – 2024 – Brantford Bulldogs), but with those shots that we made yesterday, I don’t care who was in net, they weren’t going to stop them.”
The Waxers spotted the Ajax-Pickering Raiders an early 2-0 lead in the semis but tied things up in the third (Max Seon) and took it in a shootout on a goal from Maxim Skinner. Waterloo, meanwhile, squandered a two goal lead in the third to Ottawa Myers Automotive but went a perfect three for three in the penalty shot session to advance to the gold medal affair.
The Sudbury U18 Wolves had a tough go of it at home, suffering four straight setbacks with losses at the hands of the Mississauga Senators (5-2), Markham Waxers (5-1), North Shore Whitecaps (2-0) and CIH Academy - Green (5-3).
With much lower ranked teams to contend with – generally speaking – the U15 AAA Wolves claimed top spot in their division with victories over Okanagan Hockey Academy (8-0), the Timmins Majors (9-0), the Soo Jr Greyhounds (4-3) and the Eastern Ontario Wild (6-4).
Though the latter provided the opposition in the grand finale, the locals had every right to feel confident, building up a 5-1 lead in their round robin game before encountering penalty issues that would lead to a scoreboard that made the contest look much closer.
“Today, they tightened things up quite a bit,” said Sudbury head coach Gerry Dupuis, his team earning the crown only after Nicholas Christakos converted on a pretty individual effort with the teams playing three on three hockey, giving the Wolves a 2-1 win over the Wild.
“We’re very close in the rankings, somewhere between 15 and 23,” Dupuis continued. “They have two or three quick D’s and a lot of good forwards. Our big message was to stay out of the box and protect our own zone first.”
That, however, was a familiar refrain right from Thursday evening through to Sunday afternoon.
“All weekend, even when playing the weaker teams, we wanted to clean up our breakouts,” said Dupuis. “We want to leave our zone as a five-man unit, get through the neutral zone with speed and work on different zone entries.”
Sudbury fell behind in the first period as Tristan Gendron-Steele scored on the power play for Eastern Ontario, with that 1-0 scoreboard remaining intact until Owen Angus evened things up early in the third, with the Wolves also on the man advantage.
With 15 points in five games (8G-7A), Dacey Dupuis would lead this division in scoring, with teammates Jackson Mead (4G-6A) and Ryan Thompson (5G-2A) just a little further back. And with the tandem of Ty Imbeau (1.48 – GAA) and Nicolas Rocca (2.31) backstopping things at the other end of the rink, Sudbury was not about to fret the final being extended beyond regulation time.
“We thought for sure we had the edge in overtime,” said coach Dupuis. “And even if it went to a shootout. We thought we had the goaltending and the players to win it.”
This would mark a second consecutive tournament in which the final Sudbury outing would come down to overtime, with the Wolves dropping a 4-3 decision to Hill Academy in the semi-final of the Shanahan Tournament last weekend at the Canlan Rinks at York University.
“Honestly, we could probably spend a bit more time in this area (three on three play),” admitted Dupuis. “We have a strategy to play man on man defense and try and spring somebody open for an odd man rush.”
Truth be told, that wasn’t exactly how the game-winning goal played out – but in the end, this tournament stayed true to form, for the most part.
