Colts capture city hockey championship

The Korah Colts capped a magical local playoff run by upsetting the White Pines Wolverines on Saturday night to take the High School Hockey League city championship.

Using an opportunistic offense and some incredible goaltending from Mitchell Zorzit, the Colts won the third and deciding game of the series 2-1 in front of a large and loud gathering at Memorial Gardens.

The Colts will now take the Sault's number one seed into the Northern Ontario Secondary Schools Association (NOSSA) AA championships beginning Tuesday at Memorial Gardens. The Wolverines will also compete as the second local seed.

Rob Calvert scored the game winner with 43 seconds remaining in the second period.

The Wolverines opened the scoring just 11 seconds into the contest when Josh Reed beat Zorzit. But the Colts battled back and tied the scored early in the second period on a goal by Kyle Marshall.

Zorzit sealed the win with some big saves down the stretch, with perhaps the biggest coming with 5:30 minutes left in regulation time when Zorzit kicked out the pad to stop two quick point blank rebound shots.

"We've have a no quit team since day one and we did everything in this series except put the puck past the line," said Wolverines head coach Mike Cowan.

"We scored early and then we got back on our heels for a big chunk of the game. But we can back hard and couldn't get one by him and hit a post with seven seconds left.

"The championship game isn't an easy situation to play in whether you are the up team or the down team and I like the way we responded."

Zorzit was honoured following the game with the Convenor's Trophy as the playoff's most valuable player.

The Colts, who last won the city championship in 1995, did not take the easy route to the city title. In both the semi-final and final series, the Colts rallied from a first game loss to win the best-of-three series.

"We have a team that won't quit and we have been able to come back all season," said Colts coach Greg McMaster. "We going to enjoy this one for a bit. It's been a long time coming for this school."

PHOTOS WILL BE ADDED.