..FROM
THE DESK OF MIKE HAYAKAWA..
WAXERS
PAST THEIR GRUELING STRETCH
That sigh of relief you might have heard late
Saturday night eminated from North York Centennial Arena after the Markham
Waxers concluded a gruelling segment of its Provincial Junior A Hockey
League regular season schedule.
Playing its seventh game in the last nine days
Saturday, the Waxers skated off with a 5-3 win over the North York
Rangers. The victory also snapped a mild two-game losing streak, which
included a 5-3 loss to the visiting Ajax Axemen Friday.
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"I
thought we were competitive and had a chance to win every game..."
Russ Herrington |
In the overall picture though, the Waxers
still maintain its position atop the southern conference standings with a
12-5-0 mark. "I would have liked to have finished with a 5-2 mark,
but it wasn't in the cards," said Waxers head coach Russ
Herrington after his club had won four of the seven outings.
"We could have easily drawn into a shell and been 3-4. But we
responded and got the win when we needed to. We showed a lot of ourselves
of our makeup," he added in referring to Saturday's win.
"I thought we were competitive and had
a chance to win every game (of the seven games played) with the exception
to the Newmarket game (a 3-1 loss last Thursday). Even in our loss to
Thornhill (a 6-2 decision on Oct. 14) it was one of our best games in the
seven that we played."
Herrington acknowledged the grind over the
last week had taken its toll on the players both physically and mentally.
From the physical standpoint, the Waxers
were minus the services of defenceman Jimmy
Ball and Jason
Fraccaro, both out with injuries and Alex
Stoyan, who sat out a one-game suspension. With a brief lull in
its schedule before its next game this Friday against the Rangers at
Centennial Arena, the Waxers plan to get back to some basics during its
practice session tomorrow.
What Herrington feels his club needs to
work on are its power play, which has hit a dry spell in recent games
going zero for its last 30 opportunities. More important though,
Herrington feels his club must work on its transition game going from
offence to defence.
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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 Saturday's win, Mark
Menonte, Kevin
Tompkins, Jason
Duffy, Brent
Pollock and Jesse
Boucher each scored once for the Waxers, who held a 3-0 lead after
20 minutes before allowing the Rangers to tie the game at 3-3 through two
periods.
Kevin
Cribari, Mike
Harding and Boucher each counted single tallies in the Waxers'
loss to the Axemen.
After Friday's game with the Rangers, the
Waxers will go to Huntsville Saturday for a road game against the Wildcats
at 7:30 p.m.
On a separate note, members of the Markham
Waxers will be at the Markville Mall this Saturday from 11 a.m. to 2:30
p.m. to take part in a joint fundraiser with Cadillac Fairview for the
United Way campaign. Anyone visiting the mall that day can challenge any
of the Waxers players to a table top hockey game and get autographs for a
$2 donation.
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