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 waiting 37 years between visits from the Peterborough Petes to northern Ontario for a Sudbury Wolves home opening game, the teams will clash this Friday for the second time in six years in this setting.

Wolves GM Rob Papineau was all of 11 years old when Sudbury and Peterborough clashed on September 24th 1982, with the Petes thumping the homeside 10-5 in one of only two occasions since 1972 that the Wolves have surrendered ten goals or more in their home opening encounter.

Much more recently, on October 8th 2021, to be precise, the Wolves kicked off their Covid-delayed campaign with a 6-3 win over the Petes as Liam Ross netted the first two goals of the 2021-2022 campaign. He would be joined on the scoresheet by Ethan Larmand, Giordano Biondi, Jack Thompson and Chase Stillman, with Mitchell Weeks picking up the win between the pipes.

The Wolves are looking to snap a two-game home opener losing skid, dropping a 3-1 decision to the Barrie Colts two years ago and losing 4-3 in overtime to the North Bay Battalion last September. The longest stretch of home opening wins came between 1991 and 1996 when the Pack won five straight openers, including two against the London Knights.

On Saturday night, the Wolves will travel to Barrie, marking just the third time the local juniors have launched their road schedule against this particular divisional rival – and the first time in 20 years. On September 20th (1997), the Sudbury squad made the trip south and doubled the Colts 6-3, with Chad Cavanagh scoring twice before being traded 12 games later to the Sarnia Sting.

The remaining Sudbury goal scorers are likely far more familiar as Konstantin Kalmikov, Taylor Pyatt, Brandon Sugden and Mike Fisher all made their way on to the scoresheet, with Jason Gaggi making 39 saves to register the win. Five years later, the tables were turned as Barrie downed Sudbury 6-2 as well travelled forward Luc Chiasson paced the Colts attack with two goals – the Colts being the fifth and final team he would play for.

Bobby Chaumont and Marko Kovacevic scored for the Wolves, with Chaumont still relatively early into an ironman streak that would see the Sudbury native play the entire 68 game OHL schedule for four straight years (2001-2002 to 2004-2005). The Wolves had a franchise best four game winning streak in road openers snapped last year, beaten 5-1 by the Niagara Ice Dogs as the nickel city crew opened the 2025-2026 campaign with seven straight setbacks.

Despite winning only three times in their first seven home games last year, the Wolves could certainly not blame it on horrible starts. In those first seven games at the Sudbury Arena, the Wolves surrendered just one first period goal against, outscoring opponents 6-1.

If the 2025-2026 Wolves season is any indication, Sudbury fans need not panic regardless of which team scores first Friday night at old barn on Elgin Street. As might be expected, things are certainly more rosy when the home team breaks the ice, posting a 12-2-2-0 record at home in games last year when they scored first. But even when they chased the game at home, trailing opponents 1-0, Sudbury still managed to win eight of those 18 encounters, playing almost .500 hockey.

From a general standpoint, however, the Wolves will want to be much better on the road this year, especially early in games. One year ago, the team spotted opponents a 2-0 lead in exactly half of their battles away from home, falling behind 3-0 on no less than 14 different occasions on the road in 2025-2026.

The Sudbury Wolves will enter their 2026-2027 home and road openers with franchise records of 27-24-1-1-0 (home) and 17-31-2-3-0 (away) respectively.