Thunder cap off NOBHL regular season

The Soo Thunder ended the 2005-06 Northern Ontario Bantam Hockey League regular season much like the way they started it, on a winning note.

The Thunder scored three victories over the Timmins Technosub Rangers over the weekend at the Rankin Arena. After picking up a pair of victories on Saturday, by scores of 12-1 and 12-0, the Thunder scored a much tighter 6-3 victory on Sunday.

The weekend wrapped up another record-breaking season for a Soo-based club in the NOBHL. After the Soo Bantam Greyhounds dominated competition a year ago, this season's Soo Thunder find themselves as record-breakers as well.

Records tied or set this season by the Thunder include:

* Most Goals for: 266 (Previous record 205, set last season by the Soo Greyhounds)

* Highest goals for per game average: 7.82 (Previous record 6.03, set last season by the Greyhounds

* Most Assists, one season: Matthew Amadio (52), (Previous record, 49 by Dean Howard last season with the Greyhounds)

* Most Points, one season: Amadio (92), Previous record of 80, set by Howard last season) Of Note: Nick Esposto of the Onaping Falls Huskies, and Brett Thompson of the Thunder also had over 80 points this season while Drew MacMillan of the Thunder also had 80 points

* Highest Points per game average, one season: Amadio, 2.97 (Previous record held by Matt Caria of the Greyhounds, 2.52, in 2002-03)

* Most Shorthanded goals, one season: Amadio, 6 (Tied previously set record held by Patrick Jarrett of the Thunder in 1998-99 and Brandon Perry of Timmins in 2003-04)

* Fewest Losses, one season (Minimum 500 minutes played): Ryan MacDonald, 0 (Tied previously set record, held by Matthew Cooper, Sudbury, in 1998-99; Alex Levesque, Sudbury, in 1999-2000; and Justin Hogsden, Soo Greyhounds, last season)

In the early game on Saturday, the Thunder got a three goal performance from Tyler Hawdon en route to a 12-1 victory. Mickey Sartoretto also had three goals in the win.

Drew MacMillan and Dereck Hurley, with two goals each, and Matthew Amadio, Brett Thompson and Richard MacLennan completed the scoring for the Thunder while Ryan MacDonald got the win in goal. Amadio and MacMillan added three assists each while Hawdon and MacLennan had two helpers each.

Nicolas Jolette scored the lone Timmins goal.

In the night cap on Saturday, Sartoretto scored four times and added an assist in a 12-0 whitewash. Amadio had a goal and assisted on six others while Macmillan had two goals and three assists. Niclas Beaudoin added a pair of goals while Thompson added a goal and two assists in the win. Hurley had the other Thunder goal while Hawdon picked up three assists. Michael Doan earned the shutout.

On Sunday, in a much tighter contest, Sartoretto scored two goals to lead the Thunder to a 6-3 win. Amadio had a goal and two assists while Thompson had a goal and an assist. MacLennan had the other goal for the Thunder while MacMillan had two assists. MacDonald picked up his second win of the weekend in goal.

"Timmins has a young team with eight or nine minor bantam players on their team so they're looking for next year," said Thunder coach Ken Hruska. "They worked hard today (Sunday) and their goaltender played really well. (Our team) loves to score and it's hard as a coach not to let them play the way they want to play as long as they're doing everything else.

"One of the things we stressed is discipline and if they're playing that way and they're not rubbing it (offense) into the other teams faces then we'll let them keep going because they enjoy it. As soon as it gets to the point where they're showing no class or lowing their discipline a bit that I told them that I would pull the reigns."

Hruska added that, heading into the weekend, he stressed that he did not want bad habits to creep up on his team, with the playoffs coming up.

"We talked about that (coming in)," Hruska said. "We talked about making sure that we're not getting into any bad habits. We stressed that on the bench that if you start getting into that (the players) were going to hear from us. They moved the puck well, they were unselfish. Our defensive play, which we've been stressing, was really good. We didn't want to get into any bad habits."

The Thunder now enjoy a week off while the NOBHL playoffs open up next weekend. The Thunder will face the winner of the series between Timmins and North Bay in two weeks. The Thunder will open the series on home ice at the Rankin Arena.