Corvairs eliminate Blackhawks
The Thorold Blackhawks dropped a 3-2 decision at Caledonia Wednesday and were eliminated from the Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League playoffs. File photo: BILL POTRECZ.
The Thorold Blackhawks are done for the season, but coach/general manager Scott Barnes feels his club deserved a better fate.
The Hawks dropped a 3-2 decision to the Caledonia Corvairs Wednesday in Caledonia and were eliminated from their Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League, Golden Horseshoe Conference best-of-seven quarter-final series in five games.
“To me, it wasn’t a five-game series,” Barnes said. “We lost three tight games and I feel at worst we’re down 3-2 and we could be up 3-2 or we could have won the series already.”
Caledonia won the opener 8-1 and took Game 2 4-2 before the Hawks bounced back to win Game 3 4-1 at Caledonia. The Corvairs then won Game 4 4-3 in overtime.
“It’s kind of crazy. They (Caledonia) had to fight for every game. It’s unfortunate. I think our guys deserved a few more bounces, a few more calls maybe. I think they should still be playing now,” Barnes said.
In Game 5, the Corvairs grabbed an early 1-0 lead when Calvin Crombie scored just over seven minutes in.
Dylan Pergentile answered back for Thorold early in the second period before Markus Dempewolf and Daniel Moro replied for Caledonia to give the Corvairs a 3-1 lead after two.
Callum Cheynowski got the Hawks back to within one with eight minutes to play to conclude the scoring.
“We had the goalie pulled and a couple of face offs in their zone with the extra attacker,” Barnes said. “We had some chances, some real good looks throughout the game to score and just didn’t get the bounce.”
The immediate disappointment of being eliminated notwithstanding, Barnes was pleased with how the club came together and improved over the course of the season.
“After our start to end up this way, our guys were playing with so much structure and playing the system so well in the series,” he said. “I didn’t need to do a lot of coaching because they had things figured out. To get to that point after where we started was good. As a coaching staff we couldn’t be happier with this group and how we ended there.”
The Hawks lose captain Jack Sykes and forward Jagger North to graduation.
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