The Hamilton Kilty B’s beat the Caledonia Pro-Fit Corvairs handidly on Monday night, by a score of 7-2.
Prior to the game, Hamilton was presented with the Tony Passero Memorial Award as GOJHL regular season champions.
Connor Haynes (10), Sam Shakes (16), Nathan Phillips (17), Harris Goan (4,5), Brodie McIntyre (7) and Dylan Abbamont (36) all scored for Hamilton (40-7-1-0).
The Kilty B’s came buzzing out of the gates in this one, energized by the trophy ceremony and a loud home crowd. Just under three minutes into the game, forward Justin Monteith threw a puck towards the net that bounced off of the driving Haynes and into the net to make it 1-0 Hamilton.
Shakes extended the lead to two just a couple of minutes later, corralling a Matheson Mason wraparound attempt and potting the rebound. On the next shift, Phillips made it 3-0, cleaning up the garbage in front of the net after the original point shot by Nolan Underwood was saved by Caledonia starting goalie Ethan Langevin.
Caledonia called a timeout following the third goal, and swapped Langevin with backup netminder James Norton, but it made no difference. Not even two minutes later, Derek Taylor found Goan alone in the slot, who wristed the puck past Norton for his first of the game.
The Corvairs took a penalty just before the end of the first period, which provided Goan the opportunity to pick up his second of the game on the power play – the recipient of a lucky bounce off the boards that left him with only the goalie to beat.
Caledonia (record) fought back against their rivals in the second, striking halfway through the period on a goal by Jacob Macdonald to make it 5-1. Twice after that they thought they had closed the gap further, only for the goals to be called off.
The Kilty B’s put the result beyond doubt early in the third period, when Taylor and McIntyre worked the puck out from behind the net for a scoring chance, which McIntyre finished off to make the game 6-1.
The leading scorers for both teams – Ethan Doyle for Caledonia, Abbamont for Hamilton – traded goals midway through the third, but the bigger news were the injury scares for the Kilty B’s. The knees of Hamilton players were often the target, with Nolan Underwood, Matthew Duarte, and Liam Galton all having scary looking collisions. Underwood and Duarte returned appearing no worse for wear, but Galton exited in the final minutes with the help of teammates and trainers, and appeared to not put much pressure on his right leg.
Nolan Chartrand had a busy night in goal, stopping 38 of the 40 shots he faced in just his second start of the season for the Kilty B’s, the other a shutout win over Pelham in February.
Playoff Format:
- The top eight clubs from each conference qualify for the 2021-22 GOJHL postseason, battling through three best-of-7 series to determine the conference winner.
- As the first-place team in the Golden Horseshoe Conference, Hamilton will play the eighth-place Niagara Falls Canucks in the first round, in a series to happen between April 6th and April 17th.
- The winner of each conference playoffs will advance to a home-and-home round robin against the other champions, from which the top two teams will advance to a best-of-3 series to decide the Sutherland Cup Champion.
