(Rob Clayton – Soo Jr. Greyhounds TV)
Our U11s enter the final league weekend in fourth place, but the standings are so close that they have a chance to jump into first. They weren’t originally scheduled to play league games this weekend but as with so many other things, Covid-19 caused an interruption to their regular season. These postponements and the subsequent rescheduling mean the U11 Soo Jr Greyhounds play at Sudbury Timberwolves this coming weekend.
The way the league was originally scheduled, each team was to play 24 league games, and then playoffs. Well, playoffs were last weekend yet we are still playing league games as the league has permitted teams to reschedule postponed games up until the end of the month even after the playoffs. Unfortunately, with 12 postponed games in total, we have had far more games postponed than we are able to make up. We have played 12 league games so far, so even with these 3 rescheduled games we will still end up 9 games short of the originally scheduled 24 games; those 9 games will not be made up and will remain cancelled.
And so, the Soo find themselves sitting in fourth place (10-1-1) entering the weekend with 21 points, 2 points behind North Bay Trappers (11-1-1), 3 points behind Timmins North Stars (11-4-2), and 4 points behind Sudbury Timberwolves (12-3-1). Nickel City Jr Sons (5-13-3) and Copper Cliff Reds (0-13-0) round out the standings for the U11 6 team loop. Savvy readers will note that the league totals for wins and losses do not match; that’s because each team also plays some league games vs. teams in the U10 loop. Those games count towards the league results for both leagues, but the U10 teams are not listed in these league standings as they have their own league standings.
The Soo Jr. Greyhounds are very familiar with their scheduled opponent this weekend. They opened the season with a 3 game homestand against Sudbury back in October. Two of those games the Soo won convincingly (8-0 and 14-5) however the third game of that homestand did not go as planned for the Jr Hounds as they suffered a 3-2 defeat to Sudbury in what would be their only loss thus far in league play. Head coach Cole Jarrett will be keen to address this lack of consistency for this weekend’s contests.
October was not the only meeting for these teams. They more recently played three times over playoff weekend at the beginning of March. The first of those meetings was an impromptu Friday afternoon exhibition game, thrown together when the Soo’s first playoff round robin game vs. North Bay had to be forfeited. This game saw the Soo jump out to a 3-0 first period lead, extending the lead in the second to 6-2. But Sudbury made things interesting in the third making it a two-goal game midway through the marker, with the Soo eventually securing a 9-5 win. Saturday morning these two teams were right back at it with the Soo’s second playoff round robin game. This would be a much tighter checking game, in which the Soo would skate off with a 4-1 victory. Both teams emerged from the round robin to win their respective semi-finals, and so the final meeting on Sunday afternoon would see the Soo play their most complete game, shutting out Sudbury with an 8-0 Championship game victory.
If the Soo can bring that kind of game this weekend, similar results and six crucial standings points would allow the Soo to climb up to first place for the regular season at the conclusion of their league play. After that though, the remainder of the regular season is somewhat cloudy. Teams may still be trying to reschedule postponed games, and it has not been communicated what is the new official end date of the extended regular season. With the standings as tight as they are, and all teams still having postponed games to potentially reschedule, there are many iterations that could still see another team emerge at the top of the standings when the dust settles. But the Jr Hounds cannot afford to get distracted by that. Their sights need to be set firmly on the first place Timberwolves, starting this Saturday at 1:30pm. Join us on the Facebook live stream from the Coniston arena.