North Stars fall in Semi-Finals

The Sault Ste. Marie North Stars grabbed an early lead less than three minutes into their game but they couldn't muster anymore offence after that as the tight checking Toronto Jr. Canadiens edged the Stars 2-1 in the semi-final at the Central Region Midget AAA championships here in North Bay.

Tyler Liukkonen got the Stars on the board first and was tackled by his teammates during the celebration early in the first period.

The celebration was short lived though as Jordan Watts beat a sprawling Ryan Dube on a delayed penalty call to even things up at 1-1.

The game stayed that way until the midway point of the second period when a North Star defender was knocked down causing a 3 on 1 rush which was finished off by Alex Galli who beat Dube to give the Jr. Canadiens the lead for good.

According to many of the Sault Ste. Marie fans, players on the bench and coaches it was a penalty that should have been called.

“When a guy gets tripped and it creates a three on one into the other zone you know it’s quite obvious that it’s going to be a scoring chance,” said Michael Hall about a missed call by referee Jeff Golden that may have cost his team a birth in Sunday’s final.

“It’s just frustrating to end the tournament on a non-call as far as I’m concerned it’s an interference the guy coming out of the box trips up our guy and then all of a sudden a three on one and they go down and score it makes it a 2-1 hockey game and that’s how it ended up.

“We didn’t get the call but then again we didn’t get the powerplay opportunities and we didn’t capitalize,” added the disappointed North Stars head coach who saw his team drop two of its last three games at the regional event. The North Stars lost that many times in regulation during their entire regular season schedule in the Great North Midget League.

Despite the apparent missed call, Hall also admits his team didn’t play it’s best, call or no call.

“The disappointing thing is we had no jump today, you know the biggest game of the season and we had no jump we were dumping the puck we weren’t the first guys on it,” said Hall.

The Canadiens played a solid defensive game blocking numerous shots all game long as only 22 shots got through to goaltender Alan Reynolds.

After Trevor McNutt rang one off the far post from a bad angle early in the third period, the Star really didn’t have many more good chances after that.

“We are really pleased with the effort from start to finish,” said Jr. Canadiens head coach Phil David.

The Junior Canadiens coach says it was a much different game Saturday morning compared to the Friday contest which the North Stars won 5-2 over his club which rested five of its regulars.

“Yesterday both teams held back and it wasn’t a real view of what the teams were like we knew that we changed our systems today just so we could not give away too much certainly for all of our players our ‘D’ and our forwards are taught to block shots, sometimes they didn’t during the year but they did when it counted most,” said David.

The North Stars coaching staff recognized the Canadiens shot blocking tactics but the players weren’t able to work around it.

“It was frustrating because we talked to our boys right after the first period that these guys remind us of the team in Timmins as they slide in front of shots, slide in front of shots, drop the shoulder push it by them or whatever and we continually made the same mistake firing pucks right into them so you have to learn from your mistakes and move on,” said Hall.

Rally the troops?

Now the Sault coach has to find a way to get his team up for a third place game they wished they didn’t have to play.

“You have to play with some pride, it’s not what we wanted but you can go home in fourth or you can go home in third and remind them that there’s a lot of guys in that dressing room that this is their last crack at midget hockey and they are graduating and you might as well graduate on a high note,” said Hall.

The North Stars will play their final game of the season Sunday at North Bay Memorial Gardens when they take on London in the bronze medal game which starts at 10 a.m. and the tournament finale which starts at 1 p.m. as Markham and Toronto will battle it out for the gold medal.