Thunder preparing for European trip after NOBHL sweep (6 photos)

The Soo Thunder AAA Bantam Major team will be heading into the Christmas break, and their trip overseas, on a winning note.

The Thunder swept North Bay's Hiltop Variety Blades over the weekend at the Rankin Arena. The Thunder picked up a pair of wins on Saturday by scores of 12-2 and 11-3 before finishing off the sweep on Sunday afternoon with a 9-1 victory.

In Saturday's early game, Matthew Amadio had three goals and a pair of assists to lead the way offensively. Mickey Sartoretto had a goal and two assists. Derek Hurley, with a pair of goals, Drew McMillan, Richard MacLennan, Josh Cerasuolo, Niclas Beaudoin, Steven Burt, and Sean Stubbs also scored in the win. Michael Doan picked up the win in goal for the Thunder.

Chris Herbert and Eric Bouchard scored for North Bay.

In Saturday's night's 11-3 win, the line of Sartoretto, Amadio, and McMillan were again the leaders of the pack offensively. Sartoretto had a pair of goals as well as an assist while Amadio had a goal and three assists. McMillan added a pair of goals and an assist in the win. Burt, Dereck Hurley, Tyler Hawdon, Brett Thompson, Cerasuolo, and Beaudoin also scored in support of goaltender Ryan McDonald.

Herbert, Ryan Leckie, and James Olivier score for North Bay, all in the third period.

The Thunder capped off the weekend on Sunday afternoon with a convincing 9-1 victory.

Sartoretto led the way again with three goals and three assists while Amadio chipped in with two goals and two assists and McMillan added a goal and three assists. Thompson and Cerasuolo scored the other Thunder goals and also had an assist each for two point games.

"They moved the puck well," said Thunder coach Ken Hruska of the McMillan, Amadio, Sartoretto line. "The one thing I wanted to stress to them was not to be selfish and they weren't. The whole team wasn't. They were moving the puck well, it wasn't a me-me-me attitude which happens. Cerasuolo on defense had a good weekend and the goaltenders both played well."

Hruska was also pleased with his teams ability to keep pressuring the Blades despite earning convincing wins earlier in the weekend.

"We addressed (being up for games like these) a couple of weekends ago against Timmins," Hruska said. "We beat Timmins pretty good the first game, then the next game was a little bit closer, and we just squeaked out the third game. We re-focused ourselves. It is harder to get up, but they still have to be ready to play.

"We're just going about our business and make sure they're ready to play. We're stressing hard work and it really showed this weekend," he continued. "You could get lazy when the score gets up a little bit. I wanted to keep them working on that. We had a little bit of a soul-searching a couple of weeks ago. We were getting close to Christmas, the trip was coming up…ever since then they've been really good."

The Thunder now prepare for their trip overseas which will see them spend time in Sweden and Finland just after Christmas. The team departs for Stockholm, Sweden on Boxing Day and will return home on January 5th.

"We're in Stockholm the 27th to the 31st. On the evening of the first we take a cruise boat over to Finland. For the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th (of January) we're in Finland and we come home on the 5th," said Hruska.

"We dubbed it for the boys 'Experience life through sports.' That's been out motto. The boys are being billeted for the first three or four nights. They've been making contact with some of the families recently through e-mail. We wanted to get through this weekend because this is our last league games before Christmas so we can start looking forward to that.

"We have hockey pretty well every day. One day they have us set up to play a four or five game tournament in one day," Hruska continued. "They're only hour games and we'll start in the morning and go right through playing against different teams. The rest of the time we're playing one game a day. We're looking forward to it."

Next Northern Ontario Bantam League action for the Thunder will be on January 14 and 15 when they host the Onaping Falls Huskies at the Rankin Arena in a three game set.