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Oakville over Dryden in Dudley opener
Oakville's Nick McParland is held up by Dryden Ice Dogs' Chris Blaquiere during Dudley Hewitt Cup action Tuesday. PHOTO/JESSICA DARMANIN
Sports
Apr 22, 2008 08:03 PM
Newmarket playing Sudbury in Game 2
By: Jon Kuiperij Metroland Staff
If the Dryden Ice Dogs re indeed the best competition the Dudley Hewitt Cup has to offer the Oakville Blades, the Blades must like their chances.
Paced by a natural hat trick from Nick McParland, Oakville opened the Central Canadian junior A hockey championships Tuesday with a 5-1 win over the Ice Dogs, outshooting the Superior International Junior Hockey League champions 37-20 in the process. Dryden entered the tournament as the fifth-ranked Jr. A team in Canada, the highest ranking in the four-team Dudley Hewitt field.
Game 2 in the tournament has the host Newmarket Hurricanes playing the Sudbury Junior Wolves tonight at 7:30 p.m.
The Blades will continue the tournament Wednesday afternoon with a 2:30 contest against Sudbury at the Ray Twinney Recreation Complex.
“It feels really good. We were really worried about getting off to a weak start, and we kind of did, but we came back and played hard,” said McParland.
Oakville - listed sixth in those national rankings - used goals by Julian Cimadamore and McParland to build a 2-1 lead after two periods.
McParland added another marker eight minutes into the third, and the Blades - as if smelling blood - poured it on from there.
McParland completed his three-goal effort with 9:02 to go in regulation, pulling the puck through the skates of an Ice Dogs defenceman and then beating Dryden goaltender Graeme Harrington five-hole. Cimadamore notched his second of the game with 1:55 to go, completing the scoring.
Cimadamore and McParland each contributed assists as well, with Luke Moodie picking up three helpers and Chris Haltigin setting up a pair.
Dustin Alcock, Jeff Grenier and Braden Birch also had assists.
“When we get a lead, we start playing with confidence, and confidence is a big thing in this game,” said McParland. “It changed the whole game.”
It wasn’t always easy for the Blades. Dryden captain Colin McIntosh scored on a shorthanded breakaway midway through the second, tying the game 1-1, and the Ice Dogs rode the momentum to dominate play for a five-minute stretch. Blades netminder Scott Greenham made several stellar stops to keep the game tied 1-1, however, before McParland took over.
“(Greenham) played unreal,” said McParland. “He comes to play every night. He’s a role model for us all. Guys have off-games, but he does not have off-games.”
Following Wednesday’s game, the Blades will close out their round-robin portion of the tournament with a 7:30 p.m. game Thursday against Newmarket. Second- and third-place finishers in preliminary play will play in a semifinal game Friday evening, with the winner advancing to face the top finisher in Saturday’s championship contest.
Tuesday’s win almost assures the Blades of a spot in at least the semifinal, but McParland said Oakville is gunning for a first-place finish and bye into the final.
“Five games in a row is crazy when you’re playing three 20 (minute periods),” he said. “We want to win four straight.”
The winner of the Dudley Hewitt Cup will earn a spot in next month’s Royal Bank Cup national championship, to be held in Cornwall.