At the Blind River Community Centre, the second place (21-7-2-2) Blind River Beavers took to the ice to host the third place (20-9-2-1) Soo Thunderbirds in a west division contest with only three points separating the two junior A programs heading into 2023.

At 15:48 of the first period, veteran Thunderbird defenseman Kaden Dundas fires a snapshot from the top of the right faceoff circle to find the back of Beaver goaltender Charlie Burns’ net for his fifth of the 2022 – 2023 season to give the Soo a 1 – 0 lead. Wyatt Marlow drew the lone helper on Dundas’ goal. Picking up a turnover, Youseff Chaouchi slides his tenth of the season under Burns’ right pad on a Thunderbird three on one to bring the Soo’s lead to 2 – 0 at five minutes even of the second period. Jackson Truchan and Kolby Fellinger adds the assists on Chaouachi’s goal. From the right facoff circle with 17 seconds remaining the period, Truchan sends the visitors into the second intermission up 3 – 0 with a backhand past Burns through traffic. Justin Mauro and Brock Santa Maria contributed on Truchan’s fifteenth of the season. 5:12 into the final period of the game, Beaver forward Michael Gallagher finds the back of Kolton Bourret’s net after catching a pass from behind the Thunderbird netminder’s net from Jack Robinson to pull Blind River within one. With Charlie Burns on Blind River’s bench for an extra attacker with 72 seconds remaining, former Beaver Justin Mauro fires an unassisted wrist shot for his sixth of the season into an empty Blind River net to send the Thunderbirds into the Christmas break down by only one point of the Beavers in the west division with a 4 – 1 win.

Next action for the Beavers will be on January 6th in Sault Ste Marie, Michigan against the Soo Eagles in a 7:30 p.m puck drop while the Thunderbirds head across the St Mary’s River on Saturday, January 7th to take on their cross border rivals, the Soo Eagles in a 7:00 p.m start.