North Stars suffer first loss of the season

(The following story was submitted by Chris Dawson of Baytoday.ca, a sister site of SooToday.com)

The Sault Ste. Marie North Stars got two back to back wake up calls and that helped lead the defending Great North Midget League champions to a 10-2 victory over the North Bay Trappers Sunday afternoon at West Ferris arena.

The unbeaten North Stars first wake up call came Saturday night when the Trappers blanked the Stars 3-0 in front of a crowd sprinkled with OHL scouts. Their second call came when coach Mike Hall called a very early morning meeting Sunday.

"We tell our kids it doesn't take any talent to work hard, we weren't working hard on Saturday night and we got what we deserved we got out played, we got out hustled we got beat to loose pucks today we had a 5 a.m. meeting and it seems to have woke a few kids up,” Hall said.

“I thought today we skated a lot better and our best players were our best players.”

But it was the Trappers who did get on the scoreboard first in this game when Darcy Vaillancourt, who had two points in Saturday’s game, scored on the power play in the first to make it 1-0. That would be the last lead the Trappers would have on this weekend.

After Dean Howard evened things up midway through the first and with less than three minutes left in the period Brett Perlini scored a power play goal past a sprawling Marc Veilleux to make it 2-1 after one.

In the middle frame the North Stars opened the scoring flood gates in a big way, scoring five times including three on the power play. Derek Coccimiglio scored twice and Dean Howard, Dan Vernelli and Tyler Liukkonen had singles in a back breaking period for the Trappers.

The turning point in that period occurred when the Trappers failed to cash in on a 5 on 3 power play because soon after the second penalty expired the Stars created a turnover and Derek Coccimiglio beat a struggling Marc Veilleux upstairs to give the Soo a commanding 4-1 lead.

Trappers head coach Larry Keenan says his club took way too many undisciplined penalties in the game and they can’t afford any type of let down against team’s of the Soo’s caliber.

R20;After the first period we stopped competing a little bit and we self-destructed in the second period,” Keenan said after the game.

Marc Senecal scored early in the third to make it 7-2, but Derek Coccimiglio, Brett Perlini and Dean Howard rounded out the scoring for the North Stars.

On Saturday, the Trappers played their best game of the season, knocking off the Soo North Stars 3-0 and putting an end to their 10 game unbeaten streak to start the season.

The Trappers opened the scoring in the middle frame when Darcy Vaillancourt stripped the puck from a Soo defender and fed Marc Senecal who fired it into the open cage to give the Trappers the 1-0 lead less than 2 minutes into the second period.

On the other end of the ice Trappers goalie Patrick Beaudry was phenomenal. He stopped 42 shots for the shutout including 14 saves in the second period and another 15 in the third.

Darcy Vaillancourt gave the Trappers some insurance early in the third period and Joel Senecal added an empty netter with 23 seconds to play to ice the Trapper victory.

(PHOTO:Soo North Stars forward Brad DiCandia stands over Trappers goalie Patrick Beaudry who covers up the puck after another good opportunity by the North Stars. Photo by Chris Dawson.)