The Lakehead Thunderwolves welcome the Brock Badgers to the Fort William Gardens this Friday and Saturday night. Lakehead is in a furious three-way battle for first in the OUA Far West Division with Western and Waterloo with the Thunderwolves sitting at a 13-6-1 OUA record (21-14-2-1 overall). Brock has a 6-12-1-1 OUA mark and is in fourth place in the OUA Mid West Division. The Badgers are fighting for one of the last West Conference playoff spots with Guelph and Windsor.
Saturdays game will also be the firstThunderwolves hockey game ever televised live by Thunder Bay Television-CTV Channel 4-Cable 6. The game will also be available locally on Bell Express Vu Channel 222 and across Canada on the Star Choice satellite network on Channel 314.
Lakehead is coming off a win and a tie against Guelph last weekend while the Badgers are coming off a huge 5-3 win over Western last Saturday.
Head to Head: This will be the seventh and eighth meetings between the teams and Lakehead is 4-0-2 against Brock and the Wolves outscored the Badgers 32-14 in the six previous games. Last seasons two-game series in St. Catherines was a battle as Lakehead won a 4-3 thriller and then drew 2-2 in the second game.
The Thunderwolves are ranked third in the CIS in team offense with 4.5 goals per game while the Badgers are 14th with 3.5. Lakehead is ranked fourth in team defense allowing 2.5 goals per game while Brock is 24th, allowing 3.9.
Lakehead Head Coach Pete Belliveau said the Thunderwolves expect a fierce series. We are playing playoff-type games and both of us are jockeying for vital playoff positions. Coach Nystrom always has Brock playing a very aggressive style all over the ice and it makes for entertaining hockey.
Lakehead will need offense from Jeff Richards (10g, 15a; tied for 7th OUA), Joel Scherban (14g, 11a: tied for 7th OUA), Murray Magill (9g, 10a), Peter Cava (6g, 12a), Erik Lodge (5g, 11a), Tobias Whelan (4g, 8a), and Andrew Brown (5g, 4a). The Thunderwolves will also look to continued strong defense from Mike Self, Dene Poulin, and Hugo Lehoux as well as Steve Rawksi.
A positive sign in the series vs. Western and Guelph was the improved play of Jason Lange; whose return to form would greatly help Lakeheads run for the playoffs. Mike Wehrsted played some good hockey and worked well together with Lange. Lakehead netminders Grant McCune and Chris Whitley need to be sharp against the hungry Badgers. Whitley has a 7-3-1 record, a GAA of 2.00, and a Save Percentage of .925 while McCune has a 6-3 record, a GAA of 2.71 and a Save Percentage of .914.
Brock Head Coach and Thunder Bay native Murray Nystrom said his team is looking forward to Lakeheads challenge. We are extremely excited about our opportunity to play in Thunder Bay. The environment created at the Fort William Gardens is, arguably, the best in Canadian university hockey hockey and with so much on the line, at this time of the season, we expect both game games to have a playoff feel.
The Badgers have a balanced attack led by speedy sniper Jonathan Labelle who has 9 goals and 8 assists. Labelle scored a highlight reel goal against Western that saw him undress four Mustang skaters before scoring on Western netminder Mike DAlessandro. His speed will pose a big challenge to the Lakehead defense.
Other players to watch are Chris Knighton (6g, 10a), Mike Melinko (4g, 12a), Jason Harshaw, (8g, 6a), Dallas Beaton, (4g, 10a), and Ryan Del Monte (3g, 10a). Brocks netminders are Matt Harpwood and Jeremy Day and Harpwood played an excellent game vs. the Mustangs last weekend.