Local teams fall at Bantams

It wasn't a good day for the local teams at the Ontario provincial bantam AAA championship being held this week at Fort William Gardens. The Thunder Bay Kings were dropped 3-0 by undefeated Mississauga, while the Northwestern Ontario All-Stars were blanked 8-0 by Hamilton.

GAME 12: Ottawa Valley Titans 3 Elgin-Middlesex Chiefs 3—The first game of Day 3 at the all-Ontario bantam hockey championship in Thunder Bay resulted in the fourth tie after 12 games.

Ottawa Valley would open the scoring, via the power play, 10 minutes into the contest as Gabriel Schutt deflected a Reid Murphy blast from the right point past Tynan Lauziere in the Elgin-Middlesex net.

The Chiefs would answer right back as Matteo Ciccarelli finished off a Jared McCann feed.

Kelly Summers would restore the Titans lead early in the second period as that lead would hold heading to the intermission.

McCann would then lift his club into a tie as he finished off a shorthanded effort five minutes into the final frame darting left to right and tucking the puck past Nicholas Hodgins.

Jared Steege would give Ottawa Valley their third lead at 12:27 of the third as he whipped a shot from the left side that beat Lauziere.

Elgin-Middlesex would salvage a point in the standings as Andrew Yurek jammed in the equalizer just seconds after the Chiefs had pulled their netminder in favour of an extra attacker.

With the draw the Chiefs record went to 1-2-1 while the Titans are 0-1-3.

Shots on goal were 27-17 in favour of Ottawa Valley while the respective game star honours went to Hodgins and Yurek.

GAME 13: Hamilton Jr. Bulldogs 8 Northwestern Ontario All-Stars 0— The Ontario Minor Hockey Association champion Bulldogs picked up their first win at the provincials improving to 1-1-2 overall while the NWO side remained winless.

Connor Murphy paced the Hamilton attack with three goals, including converting on a third period penalty shot, and an assist.

Ryan Laufman chipped in by tallying twice while singles went to Brad Parish, Cordell James and Brett Dykstra. Ryan Knill would supply two assists to aid the offensive cause.

Goaltender Alex Sinclair turned aside all 14 shots he faced to register the shutout while Rylie Wells made 24 saves in defeat.

Earning game star laurels were James for the Bulldogs and Trevor Kavanaugh of the NWO squad made up of players from Kenora, Dryden, Fort Frances and Sioux Lookout.

GAME 14: Mississauga Rebels vs. Thunder Bay Kings — The Rebels remain in top spot in the standings improving to 4-0-1 with the victory over Thunder Bay.

Mississauga grabbed a two-goal lead after one period of play thanks to goals provided by Nicholas Eustace and Damian Bourne.

They would extend their cushion in the middle frame as David Miller whose seventh goal of the championship moved him into the goal scoring lead among all seven competing clubs.

Mitchell Heck kicked out all 20 shots he faced in posting the shutout while Nathan Dupuis had 16 saves in the loss for Thunder Bay who fell to 2-2 overall.