Siskins eliminate Canucks
The Niagara Falls Canucks’ dream of an Ontario championship came to an end Sunday afternoon.
The Canucks dropped a 3-1 decision to the Waterloo Siskins at the Waterloo Recreational Complex and were eliminated from the Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League Sutherland Cup playoffs.
The Siskins, champions of the Mid West League, took the series 4-2 after winning the first three of the series, only to see the Canucks regroup and win Games 4 and 5.
The Siskins now advance to the Sutherland Cup final versus the London Nationals, who knocked off the Listowel Cyclone 4-2 in their semifinal.
“We honestly thought we were going to win today and win tomorrow (Game 7),” Canucks coach Frank Pietrangelo said. “In my mind, we got better every single game and we believed we were going to win this thing four straight after we lost the first three.
“We’re disappointed, naturally. It’s just fresh off the loss so it’s not an easy thing to think about.”
The Canucks fell short of their ultimate goal, but still managed to put together a memorable season that saw them lead the entire GOJHL in wins and points in the regular season and also pick up their first Golden Horseshoe title since 2011.
“We’re proud of the season we had. We did a lot of good things,” Pietrangelo said. “When we reflect on things, we’ll be a lot happier.”
The Canucks will lose Alec Vent, Patrick McCabe, Mitch Mendonca, Zach Moore, David D’Agostino, Dillon Hill, Brandon Bastasin and Nicholas Prestia to graduation.
“It’s very hard,” Pietrangelo said, when asked about the graduating players. “A lot of those guys played for me for years. They’re all great leaders. You don’t accomplish what we did and get to where we are without great leadership in the dressing room and we definitely had that.”
Waterloo scored the lone goal of the first period when Sam Cherry connected on a power play with just over two minutes to play. The Canucks outshot the Siskins 12-10 in the period.
Andrew Bruno evened things up for the Canucks at 1-1 when he scored on a penalty shot at 13:21 of the second period, the lone goal of the middle frame. The Siskins fired 19 shots on Moore in the period but failed to score.
Waterloo made it 2-1 when they once again scored with the man advantage when Joseph Serpa beat Moore at the 2:18 mark with Mendonca off for a tripping penalty.
“It looked like it was kicked in . . . the refs were the refs,” Pietrangelo said.
Cherry then ended any hopes of a comeback by the Canucks when he scored into an empty net at the 19:25 mark of the third.
The Siskins held a 45-36 edge in shots.
Waterloo went 2-for-5 on the power play while Niagara Falls went scoreless in just one opportunity with the man advantage.
“We had our one power play and we couldn’t score on it. They scored on two of their five chances,” Pietrangelo said. “We only had one (power-play chance) and a couple of 10-minute misconducts.”
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