Tigers break 10-game winning streak, falling to Trenton

December 18, 2013 · 0 Comments

By Jeff Doner

The Aurora Tigers had their 10-game win streak snapped on Saturday night, but head coach James Richmond said the team can take solace in the fact that the Tigers have been one of the hottest teams in the league.

“The 10 game streak I’m not worried about, it’s the 38 out of 42 possible points,” he said after the loss. “That’s pretty good. To me, 38 out of 42 is better than 10 in a row.”

The Tigers still currently hold a solid nine point lead over the second place Pickering squad in the division and hope the loss on Saturday night was a mere blip on the radar.

Earlier in the week, the Tigers shut out the Georgetown Raiders, 4 – 0, in a game where special teams proved to be the difference.

Eric Williams and Kory Kennedy scored power play goals, while captain Robert Angiolella added an even strength goal and a shorthanded empty net goal to end the game.

Kevin Entmaa was perfect, stopping all 30 shots fired his way to notch the shutout.

Friday night the Tigers finally returned home to play the Burlington Cougars after playing five straight games on the road.

That match was highlighted by a second straight shutout performance by Entmaa in net and a two-goal, three point performance from Calvin Higley.
Drake Board, Alex Gilmour, Dylan Sikura, Kennedy and Warren Curtis also added goals to give the Tigers a commanding 7 – 0 victory.

That win, however, came with a cost, as the team will be without its captain for an extended period of time.

“We lost Angiolella in that game, who is arguably our best 200-foot guy,” Richmond said.

The next night the Tigers played their second home game in a row, against Trenton.

They looked sluggish out of the gate and found themselves down 3 – 0 by the midway point of the first period.

“We got off to a slow start tonight and I thought we had some bad calls against us and we got down. We just didn’t have legs tonight,” Richmond said of his team’s first period effort.

Higley tried to set the tone for the second period when he tapped in a pass from Kennedy while on a five-on-three power play to make it 3 – 1.
The Tigers came out strong in the second, but still couldn’t seem to muster any offense.

Trenton dinged one off the post and then came right back to score the only goal of the period to take a 4 – 1 lead.

The third period didn’t go any better, as Trenton added a fifth insurance goal and held Aurora off the board.

“We didn’t get too many bounces our way tonight,” McCloy said post-game. “With a 10 game win streak, it just sucks to have it come to an end, but we need to take a lot of positives out of this. The pucks just weren’t going our way and it’s just one of those games that sometimes happens 0 and it happened tonight.”
Defenceman Noah Delmas acknowledged it was a tough loss to swallow, but knows his club will bounce right back.

“We’re still happy with our record and things are still going strong. Hopefully we get back on the right track and continue another streak.”
That next winning streak can start when the Tigers face off against the Newmarket Hurricanes for a home and home series on Thursday and Friday before taking a break for the holidays.

“The battle of Yonge Street…It’s always a good crowd,” Delmas said. “We get pretty jacked up for those games, so I think the team is looking forward to those next two games and then have a nice break for Christmas.”

Turkey Toss

On Saturday night the Tigers also held their annual Christmas Turkey Toss during the second intermission.

Fans at the game were able to buy tickets in order to participate in the toss and those chosen got to throw (or curl) their turkey into the net from the blue line.

Six participants were chosen and with fans cheering them on, all six managed to net their birds.

They were all then given the option to take it home or donate it to the Aurora Food Pantry, with most choosing to donate.

The Real Canadian Superstore in Aurora donated all the chickens and turkeys used at the event.