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.

Just two regular season games remain for the Sudbury Wolves this year: one at home and one on the road. And for a fourth straight year, the Wolves will follow up the end of their 68 game schedule with some post-season hockey.

Yes, the Sudbury Wolves have managed to finish ahead of the Brampton Steelheads in 2025-2026 (as well as the Oshawa Generals) – but a season series win over the newly relocated divisional rivals can only be ensured with a home ice win on Friday.

The local juniors will be looking to extend their winning streak on home ice versus the Steelheads to four games, just over the halfway mark as they chase down their all-time best stretch of seven straight victories at home from 2011 to 2014.

That run kicked off thanks to an early third period goal from Josh Leivo, propelling Sudbury past what were then the Mississauga St Michael’s Majors 4-3 in November of 2011, with Mathew Campagna, Michael Sgarbossa and Kristoff Kontos also hitting the scoresheet for the winners.

Their seventh win would come on January 10th (2014) as Sudbury doubled the now Steelheads 4-2, bolting to a 3-0 first period lead on goals from Nicholas Baptiste, Mathew Campagna and Ray Huether, with Nathan Pancel adding an insurance marker later on.

The Wolves will play their 68th and final regular season game of 2025-2026 on the road against the North Bay Battalion on Sunday afternoon – marking the second straight year in which these two northern rivals close out their campaigns with a tete a tete in the Gateway City.

In fact, in each of the 11 previous seasons, the Wolves and Battalion have met at least once every March – assuming you include 2019-2020 which had a Sudbury-North Bay matchup on the docket for March 17th cancelled due to Covid. Their eighth and final meeting of 2012-2013, however, actually came on February 8th in Sudbury when Blake Clarke closed the books on a 2-1 shootout win for the visitors as the only one of the six shooters to find the back of the net.

The latest regular season battle between these two well-acquainted franchises came in 2022-2023, the year in which the Wolves schedule did not start until October 8th, coming out of Covid. On April 15th (2022), the Battalion rode second period strikes from Dalyn Wakely, Grayson Ladd and Liam Arnsby to a 3-1 win, with only Dominik Jendek able to solve North Bay netminder Dom DiVincentiis on that particular Friday evening in Sudbury.