The Lakehead Thunderwolves mens hockey team welcomes the Royal Military College Paladins to the Fort William Gardens for a two-game series this Friday and Saturday night at the Fort William Gardens in Thunder Bay.
The Wolves enter the weekend with a 12-3-1 OUA mark in conference play (16-7-1 overall) before the holiday break and are in third place in the OUA Far West Division; one point behind Waterloo who are in second and two points behind the first place Mustangs. The Wolves sit two points above fouth place Laurier but Lakehead has two gams in hand on Waterloo and Laurier and a game in hand on Western. RMC is 7-10 in OUA play and are tied for third with Ryerson in the OUA Mid East Division.
Both games face off at 7:30 pm EST and will be videowebcast live with Alan Wickware calling the play by play and Lakehead Sports Info Director Mike Aylward handling the colour. Go to http://events.news-cast.com/events/Lakehead for ordering information. Viewers will need hi speed internet and Windows Media Player to watch the broadcast.
Lakehead is coming off a great TBayTel Varsity Cup holiday tourney where they went 3-0 in round robin play but unfortunately lost the tourney final to No. 9 Manitoba Bisons in a 7-6 OT thriller. RMC is coming off two tough home losses to Laurier and Waterloo last weekend in Kingston.
Lakehead Head Coach Don McKee said his team expects a tough challenge from the cadets at the Gardens this weekend. The Royal Military College is a team that is in a real battle for a playoff position in the Eastern Conference. After having such an
outstanding October, the team lost some very close games in the month of November, knocking them out of first place in their division and allowing cross-city rivals, the Queens Golden Gaels to secure the top spot. New coach, Adam Shell, has done an excellent job in keeping his team with a reputation of the hardest workers in the CIS. After an unpleasant finish to our Varsity Cup Tournament, it is critical that our Wolves get back to playing strong defensive hockey as they attempt to gain ground on Western and Waterloo in divisional points.
Head To Head:
The Thunderwolves have recorded 5 wins and a tie all time against RMC; outscoring the Cadets 34-13 in those six games.
Lakehead Thunderwolves:
Offensively, the Wolves will look to the SSM Line of Dan Speer (8 goals, 16 assists; 6th OUA; 9th CIS), Brock McPherson (13 goals, 9 assists; 9th in OUA scoring), and Mark Soares (5 goals, 14 assists). This line was very tough during the TBayTel Varsity Cup (Soares and Speer being named to the All Tourney team) and looks to continue its strong scoring in the second half of the OUA season.
The balanced Wolves attack will also look to Tobias Whelan (3 goals, 11 assists), Andrew Brown (11 goals, 3 assists), and Kris Hogg (6 goals, 8 assists).
The Wolves have also received solid play from forwards like Mike Wehrstedt (2 goals, 1 assists), Shandor Alphonso (4 goals, 2 assists), Richard Molenaar (2 goals, 1 assist), Matt Maisonneuve (1 goals, 4 assists), and Brad Priestlay (1 goal, 3 assists). All five played very well at the TBay Tel Varsity Cup tourney and it looks like Wehrstedt is finding the net again; a great sign for the Wolves. Wehrstedt played up front with Whelan and Hogg and the line looked very sharp; as regular line-mate Andrew Brown filled in admirably at defense during the tourney. Other forwards like Devin Welsh (3 assists) and Nathan Breukelman have also looked good.
Newcomer Konrad Breutsch made quite a start at the TBayTel Varsity Cup; notching two goals in four games; including a goal in his first game for Lakehead. His quickness and skill give Coach McKee more options in the forward line-up as he searches for combinations for the third and fourth lines.
The D-Corps has been led