Falcons trip up Titans
Ally Mostafaie has quickly made his mark with the St. Catharines Rankin Construction Falcons.
The 17-year-old rookie winger scored a goal in his junior debut last week, then followed it up with another Friday as the Falcons edged the Brantford Titans 3-2 in a Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League game at the Seymour-Hanna Sports Complex.
“It’s unreal, scoring that goal, scoring any goal is just the best feeling in the world,” the Toronto native said. “I’m glad I can do that for the team.”
Mostafaie was determined to get off to a good start this season.
“Got it started right away. It’s getting used to junior hockey. It’s not easy, obviously, but I just kept my head down and keep working and just trying to find the back of the net.”
Mostafaie comes to the Falcons from the Toronto Titans U18 AAA program where he had 14 goals and 30 points in 30 games last season.
“It’s a huge jump, everything’s just gotta be that little bit faster,” he said. “You have to release that shot a little bit quicker. It took me a couple of games to get used to, but now I realized the quicker you make that play the better the team is going to be overall.”
Mostafaie quickly impressed Falcons head coach and president of hockey operations Tyler Bielby and general manager Zack Schipper during a summer skate.
“Three months ago I didn’t know the kid existed, I didn’t know his name,” Bielby said. “He’s a great kid, comes from a great family.
“He’s just been a welcome addition to our team. The dressing room loves him and the kid can play.”
Mostafaie’s offensive talent and instincts are easy to spot.
“He’s a threat every time he’s on the ice and my job’s going to be to teach him how to play 200 feet because there’s not a coach in the future that won’t want him,” Bielby said. “There is his motor, first and foremost. You have to have a motor to be successful in any league and he likes to bring it, he likes to drive the defencemen back on their heels.”
Mostafaie opened the scoring on a goal which showed off his impressive shot.
“I think what everybody’s seeing is he’s carrying that pro shot. The goal he scored tonight, they don’t go in much harder at any level,”Bielby said.
Mostafaie said his ability to shoot the puck is no accident.
“Just countless hours of work,” he said. “Especially during COVID, I’d be awake at 3 a.m. I might have school the next day at eight in the morning, but I was just at it all the time.”
Mostafaie, who is attending A.N. Myer, is loving the life of a junior player.
“I was ready to make that little billet move, not too far from home. I want to get used to that in case I wanna make that big step next year and go farther away from home. I wanna make sure I can do the best I can. The second I came into this place, I knew it was home.”
The Falcons improved to 2-1 with the victory, which required rallying from a 2-1 deficit after one period.
“I thought that for a lot of the game, we had some pretty decent compete,” Bielby said. “What I don’t like is the way we’re playing in our own zone and then it doesn’t allow us to go play on offence. We’ve got some talent here to play in the O-zone and I think you could see that tonight, but we’re spending too much in our own zone and we just have to tighten it up.”
The Falcons tied the game late in the second when Treyson Dewar scored, then went ahead for good on Matt Fries’ second goal of the season at 11:47 of the third.
“I thought we took it to them the first 10 minutes of the game, then we gave up a couple of quick ones,” Bielby said. “I’m happy with the way the team found away. I mean, at the end of the day, we shut the door for two periods and then they found a way to win it.”
The Falcons turned in a disciplined effort, staying out of the box all night.
“We challenged the boys early in the pre-season. We are going to be very disciplined and never beat ourselves and I’m really happy that they didn’t take a penalty tonight.”
Falcon facts: Kaleb Lyttleton, Cameron Lowe and Jordan Marconi were scratched for the Falcons . . . Welland topped Pelham 3-2 in overtime Friday for their second straight win. The Panthers are winless in their first four games . . . Former Falcons and Niagara IceDogs coach Dan Fitzgerald is the head coach of Brantford.
STATS PACK
Falcons 3 Titans 2
Falcons forward Ally Mostafaie.
St. Catharines Falcons: Ally Mostafaie (2); Treyson Dewar (2); Matt Fries (2).
Brantford Titans: Ethan Szabo (4); Keenan McGrath (1).
Game stats: Shots on goal: By St. Catharines on Ben Rossi (37), by Brantford on Hayden Jeffery (18); Power plays: St. Catharines 1/3, Brantford 0/0; Penalty minutes: St. Catharines 0; Brantford 6.
Attendance: 246.
Up next: The Falcons head to Cambridge Saturday at 7 p.m. and host Ayr next Friday.
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