Eagles fall in NOSSA final

The Sir James Dunn Eagles saw their fabulous playoff run come to an end on Wednesday night.

In the Northern Ontario Secondary Schools Association (NOSSA) AA hockey championship game in North Bay, the Eagles dropped a tight 3-2 decision to the hometwon Algonquin Barons in a wild contest.

The Eagles, who finished with NOSSA record of 2-1-1, used a team-first approach and tight defense in cruising through the local high school playoffs to the city championship.

David McFadden had a splendid run at NOSSA and led the tournament in scoring with five goals and eight assists for 13 points. Linemates Matt Irving and Stephane Bouliane finished right behind McFadden with 10 and seven points, respectively.

The following are complete details of the championship game provided by Chris Dawson of SooToday.com's sister site, BayToday.ca, in North Bay.

************************************************************ Barons win NOSSA final

By Chris Dawson BayToday.ca

The Algonquin Barons continue to roll as they captured the NOSSA "AA" championship on home ice defeating the Sir James Dunn Eagles from Sault Ste. Marie 3-2 in the final.

The two clubs met earlier in the day in a meaningless game to end the round robin portion of the tournament as both clubs had clinched spots into the final before they hit the ice. Wednesday morning the Eagles soared past the red hot Barons 5-3.

But both teams realized that the evening game was the one for all the marbles. While this one final didn't have the drama of Saturday's overtime marathon in the NDA final, it sure didn't finish without some controversy.

With the game scoreless Nathan Hewitt rocketed a shot that appeared to go into the net under the cross bar and came right out. Play continued, but after the next whistle the linesman told the referee it was in fact a goal and the Barons were awarded a 1-0 lead much to the displeasure of the Eagles bench.

The Barons though would run into penalty trouble later on in the first. The Barons were able to kill off the first half of a two man advantage, but then Richard Blais took a shot at an Eagles player after the whistle and the Eagles were once again two men up on the Barons. This time the Eagles made it count as an Ari Viitala point shot was deflected in front and dropped over the shoulder of Mathieu Belanger and it was 1-1.

In the second period the Barons had a tremendous chance to grab the lead, after a good Barons rush and a shot on goal, Kevin Gareau picked up the rebound and could not beat Eagles goalie John Ellis who was completely out of position but somehow he caught the puck and kept this one at a stalemate.

The Barons would continue to move the puck well on their transition game and close to the 5 minute mark Nathan Hewitt made a great rush down the wing, deked the defender and fed a nifty pass across to Nicholas Raymond who found nothing but net.

The third period started off with some more controversy as Christian Tremblay took out an Eagles player on what appeared to be a nasty hit from behind. No call was made and only moments later Nathan Hewitt would bang home his second goal of the game to give the Barons a huge 3-1 lead with less than half a period to go.

The Eagles started a meltdown after that as one of their scoring stars Matt Irving, was given a 5 minute major for hitting Mathieu Blanchard from behind with 6:21 left in regulation.

The angry Eagles coach Remi Gentes started waiving a towel on a hockey stick, showing his displeasure to the officials. He was ejected from the game.

With less than 2 minutes to play the Barons got in some penalty problems again as Nathan Hewitt was given a two minute penalty and a game followed by a delay of game penalty to the Barons net minder and once again the Eagles have a two man advantage and a chance to make an unbelievable comeback.

With 55 seconds left, Stephane Bouliane tipped a point shot behind Belanger making it 3-2, but after that the Eagles couldn't complete the comeback as Algonquin won their second championship on Memorial Gardens ice in five days.

"We always seem to do things the hard way, but I'm very happy with the result," said Algonquin head coach Dale Hewitt.

"Obviously I know Nathan cost us in the penalty box there but he was certainly a factor there in the game for sure, I'm just very happy for the boys, awesome,"

Across the ice the Eagles quietly left the ice before the NOSSA trophy was handed out, leaving only a white towel on the ice. Head coach Remi Gentes believed his club deserved a better fate.

"I can complain about a lot of stuff, but we lost, we lost, I told them after the game you are the champions without a championship."

Matt Irving scored twice to lead the Sir James Dunn Eagles past the Algonquin Barons 5-3 Wednesday morning in a tune up match prior to Wednesday night's NOSSA "AA" final.

Mitchell Sullivan, Kris McKinnon and Kevin Gareau scored for the Barons in the loss.

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*** NOSSA AAA:

A great run for the Widdifield Wildcats came to an end in Sudbury Wednesday night as the North Bay high school lost a 2-0 decision to St. Charles in the NOSSA "AAA" final.

The St. Basil Saints represented the Sault at the tournament but were eliminated from competition after a pair of losses on Tuesday.