By Pat Payton
St. Marys Lincolns held their annual on-ice Remembrance Day ceremony just prior to last Friday night’s game against Strathroy Rockets.
The Royal Canadian Legion, Branch 236, colour party consisted of: president Tom Jenkins, Sgt. At Arms Darryl Golz, back-up Sgt. At Arms Ernie Gillham, Veteran Service Officer Bill Taylor, and Tom Leier.
Members of the ANAF, Unit 265, colour party included: president Roy Maynard, vice-president Shaun O’Neil, Sgt. At Arms Evelyn Albers, acting vice-president Dave Ellis, and ANAF Veteran Peacekeeper George Hayes.
Also taking part in the ceremony were trumpeter Alan Lounds, who performed the Last Post and Reveille, and piper Les Brunton, who performed the Piper’s Lament. Jenkins, Maynard and Hayes then dropped the ceremonial first pucks between Lincs’ captain Blair Butchart and Rockets’ captain Daniel Aspro.
Lincolns’ Remembrance Day ceremony was once again organized by team public address announcer Jamie Hahn.
–Injury/suspension update. Defenceman Jordan Daer returned to the Lincolns’ line-up this past weekend. He’d been sidelined with an upper-body injury. Rookie winger Braeden Burdett is still out with a hand injury.
Veteran defenceman Riley Coome returns from a three-game suspension (for fighting) this Sunday, a road game in St. Thomas starting at 7:30 p.m.
–London Nationals (9), Leamington Flyers (6) and St. Marys Lincolns (4). That’s the number of 20-year-olds the top three teams in the Western Conference standings currently have signed.
–Strathroy Rockets are a team that thinks defence first, and takes what scoring opportunities they’re given.
“We’ve been playing pretty good hockey, but we’ve ran into a little injury trouble lately and we’re battling through it,” Rockets’ coach Jason Furlong said before last Friday’s game at the PRC.
“We’ve been concentrating on our (defensive) zone. We like to take care of our own end first.
“This year, there’s a lot of parity among the teams in our league. You watch the scoreboard throughout the week, and all the games are close scores. In my opinion, the hardest-working team that shows up on any given night is the one who’s going to have an edge. We tell our guys that they have to go out and be ready to work.”
–Komoka is playing below .500 hockey, but Kings’ head coach Ron Horvat said he’s happy with his team’s play to date.
“We lost a lot of scoring up top (including sniper Joel Mazzelli to Caledonia), and you just don’t replenish that overnight,” Horvat said during a recent stop in St. Marys. “For us it’s kind of scoring by committee this year. We have a bunch of second-year kids who now have to move up to the front-line role.”
Komoka has 10 skaters back from last year’s team, including three defencemen, plus veteran goalie Nathan Young.
After this past weekend, Kings were 6-9-1-2 and second last in the West standings.
