NEWS

The St. Michael's Buzzers dream season came to an end as Nick Szopinski scored the overtime-winning goal to defeat the OJHL champion 4-3 in the championship game of the 2013 Dudley-Hewitt Cup held in North Bay, Ontario.
(pictured - 2013 Dudley-Hewitt Cup champions, the SIJHL Minnesota Wilderness - photo credit: Chris Dawson/Dudley-Hewitt Cup)

The biggest game of the year for both club's got off to a quick start with the Wilderness taking the early upper-hand and Buzzers netminder Adrian Ignagni turning them aside.  Just under three minutes into the period, Matt Galati took an elbowing penalty that would prove costly.  Although not a power play goal, Jeremy Johnson would bang home the opening goal as Galati was returning to the ice to give Minnesota an early 1-0 lead.  Forty-two seconds later Eric Carlson busted to the outside and his backhand from the circle found a way through Ignagni and the Buzzers found themselves behind two goals very early in the contest.  Head Coach Rich Ricci called a time-out to calm down the troops and his message seemed to have hit home as they found their stride and began to drive the puck at Wilderness netminder Gordy DeFiel.  At the 8:25 mark, St. Michael's finally scored their first goal against the SIJHL champions as OJHL Top Prospect Matt Buckles fired a bullet past DeFiel to make it 2-1.  Although there was no further scoring in the period, the end-to-end action saw the two clubs trading scoring chances and St. Michael's outshooting the home side 13-11.

Both teams came out flying again in the second, hoping to turn the momentum.  The period was highlighted by a couple of cross-crease game savers by Ignagni, which seemed to spur on his teammates and with just under five minutes remaining in the period, after a couple of glorious opportunities, Buckles banged in his second of the game to knot the game at two.  The period ended with the two teams trading penalties to open the third with an early power play for the Wilderness.  Minnesota outshot St. Michael's 11-8 in the period for a 22-21 shot advantage overall.

After killing off the penalty from the end of the second period, the two clubs went back to fast, hard-hitting hockey with neither team willing to give an inch.  Not long after the teams were at full-strength, CJ Shugart chipped a puck out and went in alone on DeFiel, deking backhand and just missing the open side.  With Ignagni continuing to stand tall between the pipes, his teammates rewarded him at the 11:18 mark, as David Italiano buried a rebound to put the Buzzers in front for the first time in the contest.  The Wilderness continued to push back and not long after ringing one off the iron, Ben Michaud tallied to tie the game at three.  As the clock ticked down, a wild scramble around the Minnesota cage saw the puck pop out to rearguard Jared Walsh, who rung one off the crossbar just as the final buzzer sounded, sending the championship game to overtime.  Shots in the third heavily favoured Minnesota, 16-8, for an overall shot advantage of 38-29.

Both teams continued the torrid pace in overtime with exciting end-to-end rushes, that included a pair of back-to-back breakaways.  First Buckles found himself in all alone, going backhand-forehand to be stopped by DeFiel, then Ignagni came matched his counterpart at the other end of the ice.  With just over eight minutes remaining in overtime, a broken play in front of the net saw Nick Szopinski fire home to the winner to end St. Michael's magical season.  Shots on goal were 8-3 for Minnesota in the overtime and 46-32 overall.

For a full game summary, please CLICK HERE.

Buckles, with his two goal performance, took home the tournament Top Scorer Award, while teammate Mitch Marner won the Sportsmanship Award and Wilderness netminder DeFiel was named Tournament Most Valuable Player.

The SIJHL champion Minnesota Wilderness now continue on to the RBC Cup, National Junior 'A' Championship being held in Summerside, PEI from May 11-19.