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April 08, 2005

ROUND 2 GAME 1 – Ottawa at Sudbury (7-Apr) – 67s Take Game 1 and Series Lead 1-0

* Update 4.8.2005 1730h by Sid Hello!

The 67s win 3-2 over the Wolves. Good job on the boys winning the first road game. No Rogers TV feed for this one, radio only.

It sounded like standard 67s op: Battochio spectacular, some discipline problems early on, etc. Battochio played a (his usual) stellar game, making 2 particularly huge saves according to AJ (shots by Martynowski and Foligno I think), and stopping 48/50 SOG! Way to show your stuff to the home town crowd. It sounded like Hulit and Staubitz had good games as well. Here’s hoping that they don't sit back in Game 2, content with the split. See OHL game summary here.

IN THE NEWS
(Date 4.6.2005) From the Ottawa Sun Barre Campbell writes, He's Right at Home.

(Date 4.7.2005) From the Ottawa Sun Chris Stevenson writes, Hungry like the Wolves? And from the Sudbury Star Scott Mitchell writes, Home-ice advantage.

(Date 4.8.2005) From SLAM! Sports, 67's take opener.Quick recap:

[. . . ] Hulit opened the scoring 9:35 into the match, but Nick Foligno's power-play goal tied it less than four minutes later.

In the second period, Hulit counted a power-play goal of his own at 2:40, and Brad Staubitz, also while the 67's held a man-advantage, made it 3-1 with two minutes remaining in the frame.

Benoit Pouliot cut the deficit to a goal with five minutes remaining, but Sudbury was unable to get another.

From the Ottawa Citizen and Sudbury Star Scott Mitchell writes, 67's draw first blood from Wolves [OC], 67’s draw first blood [SS].

And from the Ottawa Sun Barre Campbell writes, 67's Battochio has howl. Good stuff:

For 67's goalie Danny Battochio, the moment ranked right up there among the favourites in his hockey career. In front of family and friends last night at the Sudbury Community Arena, he took a final bow after being named the game's first star during a 3-2 win over the Wolves in the opening game of the best-of-seven Eastern Conference semi-final.

[. . .]

He made 48 saves, many of them difficult and a few nothing short of spectacular.

"It was nice to see that the crowd rose to their feet and gave me good applause," said Battochio. "It felt pretty good, and it was kind of emotional, too.

"It's nice to see the home town is still behind me, even though I'm the opponent."

And describing the unbelievable save we keep hearing about:

Foligno one-timed the shot toward the net, and everybody in the building thought it would only be a matter of the goal judge flicking the red light before Sudbury began celebrating.

But Battochio somehow managed to slide across the crease and stack his pads, blocking the puck from entering the net.

"I just (saw) him there and gave it the biggest push I could to get across and just tried to cover the hole, basically," said Battochio.

"Sometimes you've got to be lucky, and I think that was a bit of luck on my side."

Ottawa centre Julian Talbot, from Wahnapitae on the eastern side of Sudbury, also had a strong game in front of his home-town fans, but could only praise his goalie.

"That save was unreal," he said. "Saves like that can turn the game around."

Ottawa coach Brian Kilrea couldn't figure out how Battochio stopped the shot.

"Unbelievable," said the coach. "He's been doing that so often for us, but I thought it was in, but he got over there ... I just don't know how."

He's something special.

PRE-GAME NOTES
The game was broadcast on radio only (TEAM 1200/AJ Jakubec only).

LINE UP
*Forwards: McGinn, Talbot, Hulit; Bickell, Bonello, Mancari; Akeson, Petruzalek, Kaspar; VanderVeeken, Ouellette, Alphonso.
*Defensive pairings: Colbert, Joslin; Staubitz, Reid; Van Herpt, Beard.
*Starting in goal: Battochio, and Guadagnolo as back-up.
*Scratches: Spezza, Jarram, Lawrance, Kiriakou (healthy) and Lahey (inj-conc).
(Didn’t catch the line up during the pre-game show broadcast, so there may have been changes.)

SCORING
OTTAWA
1, Hulit, (2) (Talbot, Reid), 09:35
2, Hulit, (3) (Talbot, Staubitz), 02:40 (PP)
2, Staubitz, (2) (Mancari, Kaspar), 17:59 (PP)

SUDBURY
1, Foligno, (3) (Martynowski, Pouliot), 13:02 (PP)
3, Pouliot, (5) (Staal, Chaumont), 15:08

THREE STARS
OHL three stars were: (1) Battochio, (2) Pouliot-SUD, and (3) Hulit.

TEAM 1200 three stars were: (1) Battochio, (2) Pouliot-SUD, and (3) Staubitz. Honourable mention to Hulit.

REFFING
Carroll.

ATTENDANCE
4753.

NEXT UP
Game 2 – Saturday, April 9, 2005, 7:30 pm, Ottawa @ Sudbury
Game 3 – Monday, April 11, 2005, 7:00 pm, Sudbury @ Ottawa
Game 4 – Wednesday, April 13, 2005, 7:00 pm, Sudbury @ Ottawa
*Game 5 – Friday, April 15, 2005, 7:30 pm, Ottawa @ Sudbury
*Game 6 – Sunday, April 17, 2005, 2:00 pm, Sudbury @ Ottawa
*Game 7 – Monday, April 18, 2005, 7:30 pm, Ottawa @ Sudbury

*Game to be Played If Necessary

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Go 67's Go