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 Sudbury Wolves are hoping to snap a four game losing streak this week against an opponent that they know well, one that they know far less, and one that they know almost nothing about as the post trade deadline version of the team tackles a three games in four days sequence.

With four games against the North Bay Battalion still left on the schedule, the Wolves are only halfway through their eight game season series with their closest rivals. The Pack have lost three of the four encounters to date, including a 4-3 overtime setback on home ice in September that opened the 2025-2026 campaign.

Next year will see this series reach the 200-game plateau, keeping in mind that matchups against the Battalion are now part of the package that first started with battles opposite the Troops when they were stationed in Brampton. A trip down memory lane shows us that on October 18th (1998), the Battalion snapped a 4-4 third period tie as Kurt McSweyn netted the game-winning goal in a 5-4 win.

Sudbury tallies were drilled home by Alexei Salashenko, with two, as well as Kip Brennan and Derek MacKenzie. Prominent names in that Brampton lineup included Jason Spezza (who scored in that contest) and Raffi Torres while a very strong Wolves team featured Norm Milley, Mike Fisher, Taylor Pyatt, Jason Jaspers, Brian McGrattan and Andrew Raycroft, in addition to Brennan and MacKenzie, noted above.

The Wolves are riding a three game winning streak versus the Flint Firebirds as the teams prepare to meet in Sudbury on Friday night. Extending that to within one game of the local juniors franchise record opposite their Michigan counterparts will not be easy, given that Flint both leads the West Division standings with an impressive mark of 29-9-2-2 – and added to their roster at the trade deadline.

Jacob Battaglia (formerly Kingston) and Kevin He (formerly Niagara) step into a powerful Flint roster, sliding in at four and five in the team scoring race behind the trio of Nathan Aspinall, Alex Kostov and Jimmy Lombardi. The Firebirds currently sit as the third highest scoring team in the OHL (159 goals), which means that a 33 streak that has seen Sudbury never post a home shutout against Flint (or the Detroit Jr Red Wings or Plymouth Whalers) is not likely to change this year.

While I cannot confirm checking each and every one of the schedules for the 52 years that the Sudbury Wolves have competed in either the Ontario Hockey League, or the Ontario Major Junior Hockey League, or the Ontario Hockey Association, I can safely say that contest against out of league opponents that count towards regular season standings are rare.

The 2025-2026 season sees the Wolves playing a home and home tete a tete (seems only fair to call it that, given the opponent) with the Rouyn Noranda Huskies of the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League. The teams will faceoff Sunday afternoon in northern Ontario, with Sudbury making the trek to La Belle Province one week later, on January 25th.

For as much as this does not often happen, there is precedent. On February 13th (2000), the Wolves blanked the Huskies 4-0 at the Old Barn on Elgin Street, with Norm Milley, Derek MacKenzie, Taylor Pyatt and Mike Vaillancourt providing the offensive support for netminder Mike Gorman.

On February 20th (2000), the Wolves completed the sweep, battling back from a 4-2 deficit after two and receiving third period strikes from Derek MacKenzie and Norm Milley before Dennis Wideman sent the visitors home happy, scoring in overtime.