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..FROM
THE DESK OF MIKE HAYAKAWA..
WAXERS
START GRUELING STRETCH
It might be just the second month of the Provincial Junior A Hockey League
regular season. But the way Markham Waxers head coach Russ Herrington sees it, playing
seven games in a nine-day span will reveal a lot about his team.
So far, Herrington likes what he's seen as the Waxers skated off with two wins in the first three outings.
On Friday, the Waxers overcame a two-goal, second-period deficit to emerge with a 4-3 win over the Oshawa Legionaires at Centennial Arena.
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"It's a
huge test"
Russ Herrington 7 games in 9 nights |
The following night in Thornhill, the Waxers ran into a hot goalkeeper in former Markham Islanders midget Kevin Kliman and suffered a 6-2 loss to the Rattlers.
Less than 24 hours later in Ajax, the Waxers got a two-goal effort from Mark Menonte and singles from
Paul Robinson, Jason
Young, Jason Fraccaro and
Steve Nobili to skate off with a 6-3 win over the Axemen.
Yesterday, the Waxers played host to the Stouffville Spirit before going to Newmarket Thursday for a game with the Hurricanes. On Friday, the Waxers have a rematch with the Axemen at Centennial Arena and conclude its gruelling stretch with a road game Saturday against the North York Rangers.
"It's a huge test," Herrington acknowledged. "Nobody in the league believes we can come out better than 4-3 and I disagree with that."
"To be a first-place club you have to be 5-2 or 6-1 in that stretch. If we can do that it can send a message to other teams in the league."
"This will test the character of the kids. This could be a springboard where we can put some distance between us and everyone else," said Herrington of his club, which improved its southern conference first-place mark to 10-3.
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| This article was written by Mike
Hayakawa and published in the Markham Economist and Sun. Minor edits
may have been performed to the original article.
This has been reproduced with permission. |
In Friday's outing against the
Legionaires, Brent Pollock, Jesse Boucher and
Jason Duffy scored within a seven-minute span in the final period.
Robert Burrows scored the first goal for the Waxers.
Albert Ferrante and Kevin Cribari accounted for the Waxers' scoring against the Rattlers.
Despite the loss to the Rattlers, Herrington praised his club's effort. "The score (6-2) wasn't a fair result based on the effort we gave. I thought it should have been a one-goal game. But we ran into a hot goalie and every time we made a mistake, they took advantage. We liked the effort the guys gave.
"Yesterday (Sunday in Ajax) was more of a grind it out effort. Physically we seemed find, but mentally we weren't as sharp as I would have liked."
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