The No. 5 Lakehead Thunderwolves play their last regular season home-stand of the year and it should be a thriller as they host OUA Far West divisional rivals Laurier Friday and Saturday night at the Fort William Gardens in Thunder Bay.
Both games face off at 7:30 pm EST and both will be videowebcast live on the News-Cast.com Sports Network; with ordering information available at http://events.news-cast.com/events/Lakehead. Alan Wickware, the home voice of Thunderwolves Hockey, will call all the action live with Lakehead Sports Information Director Mike Aylward adding colour.
The Wolves enter the weekend with a 19-3-1 OUA mark in conference play (23-7-1 overall; good for 39 points and the best record in the OUA. Lakehead is in first place in the very competitive OUA Far West Division; three points ahead of Western and seven ahead of Laurier. Laurier has an OUA record of 15-7-2; good for 32 points.
Lakehead is coming off three tough road wins last weekend; two against Waterloo and one against Toronto. The Golden Hawks are coming off two tough away losses to Western and Windsor.
The Wolves are first in the conference in goals for with 108 while Laurier is second with 105 so these games have the potential for some offensive fireworks. However, both teams have strong goaltending and Lakehead is second in the conference in goals allowed with 54 (behind UQTRs 51) while Laurier is 8th in the OUA; allowing 80 goals.
Lakehead Head Coach Don McKee said this series will be a barn burner. The Laurier Golden Hawks experienced an exciting journey last year by defeating the Thunderwolves in the semifinals and beating the Waterloo Warriors in the finals to represent the OUA West at the Nationals in Moncton. With almost the identical personnel from last year's team; the Golden Hawks are a major threat, with the possibility of repeating last year's heroics. Led by the Voakes Brothers, they have great offensive power and their solid defence and goaltending can create nightmares for the opposition's scoring stars. Our home games against Laurier are not only the last home games of our 2008 regular season schedule, but are by far the most important games we have played this season in The Gardens. The outcome of these games should determine our playoff schedule.
Saturday's game is Senior's Night; and a special pre-game ceremony will be held to honour the contributions of Mike Wehrstedt and Matt Jacques to Thunderwolves Hockey.
Head To Head:
The Wolves are 12-10 against Laurier all-time; 8-6 in regular season play, 2-3 in playoffs, and 2-1 in non-conference action. Lakehead has outscored Laurier 90-71 in those 22 games. This year Lakehead split the away series in October in Kitchener; winning 6-3 and losing 4-3. Last season Laurier defeated Lakehead five of five games; including the playoffs; before going on to the Queens Cup Final and the CIS national championships. So, the Hawks have beaten Lakehead in 6 of 7 games over the past two seasons and the Wolves will look to balance that out this weekend.
Wolves Breaking Records:
In a season that has seen a couple new individual marks set by Mark Soares (goals in game; 5) and Brock McPherson (assists in game; 6); it is very important to note the team accomplishments of this year's squad.
Last Sunday's win over Toronto gives the Wolves 19 wins; a new Lakehead benchmark. The previous record of 18 wins was set in 2002-03 and 03-04; during the then 24-game long OUA regular season. However, this year's squad achieved the 19 win mark in only 23 games in the 28-game long regular season which began in 2006-07.
Additionally, Lakehead's away win over Toronto gives them 9 road victories for the season; eclipsing the old mark of 8 set in 2004-05. This year's squad has 10 regular season home