In Blind River, Ontario, the Blind River Beavers and the Soo Thunderbirds opened their 2021/2022 Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League seasons on Saturday, September 18th.
Thunderbird veteran forward Tyson Doucette fires an unassisted wrist shot over beaver goaltender Gavin Disano’s right shoulder from the right faceoff circle to give the Soo a 1 – 0 lead fourty six seconds into the game. With a cross blueline pass from Russell Oldham, newly acquired Connor Healy fires a power play slapshot from inside Blind River’s right blueline at 11:14 to give the Thunderbirds a 2 – 0 lead. Scoring his second of the evening, Doucette finds the back of Disano net to increase the visitors lead to 3 – 0. Kaden Dundas added the lone helper on Doucette’s goal at 15:50 of the middle stanza.
Soo veteran forward Brock Santa Maria skates in front of the Beavers’ net to lift the fourth goal past Disano to bring the lead to 4 – 0 for the Thunderbirds. Santa Maria’s goal was unassisted 1:48 into the final period. Registering a hat trick for the Soo’s fifth of the game, Doucette picks up a bouncing puck off of the right glass to fire home is third of the game unassisted at 8:25. To the left of Disano, Thunderbird Christian Howanitz wraps the puck around Disano’s left post to give the Thunderbirds a 6 – win and 1 – 0 record to open the 2021 – 2022 NOJHL season. Thunderbird netminder earned the shutout in the Soo’s win over the Beavers in Blind River.
Beaver coach Kyle Brick told Saultsports that “goalie not good enough, D not good enough, forwards not good enough, coaches not good enough and when you add all that up you lose 6-0.
”It obviously feels great to get the first win of the season. Given the fact that we haven’t had a lot of time with the whole group I thought we played within our structure for most of the game. Our older guys led the way all night and we got some real solid performances out of our young guys. We understand it’s a long year and just one game so we will look to continue to build on the win this week at practice,” added Thunderbird coach Cole Jarrett.
Next up for the Thunderbirds will be on September 24th when they host the Blind River beavers in Sault Ste Marie at the John Rhodes Centre for a 7:30 p.m start while Beavers are back on the ice on Sunday, September 19th to host the visiting Elliot Lake Red Wings in a 2:00 p.m afternoon matinee.
Photo Gallery: Crystal Serre
