Thunderbirds win over Black Bears

The battles between the Soo Thunderbirds and the Rayside Balfour Sabrecats in recent seasons are no secret. The two teams met on a number of occasions in the past and developed one of the Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League's better-known rivalries. With the Sabrecats moving to Manitoulin during the summer to become the Wild and off to a poor start this season, the Thunderbirds seemed to have built another rivalry with the Northern Michigan Black Bears, who play out of St. Ignace. The two teams met up Sunday night at the John Rhodes Community Centre in what turned out to be a battle from the opening face off to the final buzzer. The game, which the Thunderbirds won 3-2, got interesting late in the third period when Northern Michigan forward Jeff Diehl ran Thunderbird net minder Mike Downer, causing him to leave the game due to injury and making way for Frank Carlucci to enter the game for the final 3 minutes. The hit lead to Diehl dropping the gloves with Kelly Thompson and receiving a match penalty for intent to injure along with a fighting major and a game misconduct. Moments after getting things sorted out from the previous battle, Thunderbird defenseman Ryan MacKay fought with Northern Michigan's Derek Stabile. Six seconds after play started from that fight, Soo defenseman Jeff Elliot fought Aaron Hartner of the Black Bears. Sault native Mike MacMillan led the way offensively for the Thunderbirds with two goals, including the game winner. D.J. Jelitto, Josh Leddy and Elliot also scored for the Thunderbirds. Steve Kruzewski, on the power play, and Diehl scored for the Black Bears. The Black Bears, who dropped to 2-2-1 on the season, got solid goaltending from Tony Stoehr, who stopped 27 Soo shots including 2 breakaways. At the other end, Downer and Carlucci combined to stop 17 Northern Michigan shots. With the win, the Thunderbirds record improves to 6-0-1 after seven NOJHL regular season games. Next action for the Thunderbirds is on Wednesday October 1st when they travel to the McClelland Arena to take on the Sudbury Northern Wolves. In other NOJHL action on Sunday, the Abitibi Eskimos beat the Blind River Beavers 7-1 on the strength of a three goal and one assist performance from Matt Tremblay. The North Bay Skyhawks also beat Rayside Balfour by a 7-1 score. On Saturday, The Sudbury Northern Wolves beat Blind River 9-4 and Northern Michigan beat Abitibi 5-1. Brad Coccimiglio