The Oakville Blades improved to 1-1 with a 5-2 win over the Sioux Lookout Bombers during Day 3 of the Centennial Cup in Oakville Saturday night.
Following a scoreless first period, the Blades jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the second period over the Superior International Junior Hockey League champs from Northwestern Ontario.
Ken Belanger and Maxwell Donohoe had a goal and an assist each for Oakville. Noah Tyrrell had three assists for the Blades.
“We knew it was going to be tough to get our first win,” said Donohoe, an Oakville resident, “we haven’t played in about seven weeks, but it feels great to play a good game and get rewarded. I thought we had a good response today—we had kept our foot on the gas, which was our problem (in Friday’s 7-4 loss to Miramichi). We had good spurts but today we played a more consistent game.”
Mikkel Christensen made 32 saves to earn the win. Captain Sean Clarke, Jacob Crisp and Matthew Indovina had the other Oakville goals.
Round-robin play continues through Wednesday at 16 Mile Sports Complex. Quarter-finals will be played Friday, May 17, semifinals May 18 and the championship game Sunday, May 19.
Oakville and the OJHL champion Collingwood Blues (2-0) are both off Sunday.
On Monday, Collingwood plays the Collège Français de Longueuil from Quebec at noon and Oakville faces Manitoba’s Winkler Flyers at 7:30
TSN and RDS, the official broadcast partners of Hockey Canada, will broadcast the championship game on May 19 at 3 p.m. ET. All preliminary-round games, quarterfinals and semifinals can be livestreamed at HockeyCanada.ca.
For more information on the Centennial Cup, go to: https://www.hockeycanada.ca/en-ca/national-championships/men/national-junior-a/2024
-with files from Hockey Canada and the CJHL
