Junior Tigers’ win streak reaches three with 4-1 upset of Stouffville Spirit

October 8, 2026 · 0 Comments

The Aurora Junior Tigers fired four unanswered goals in a compelling 4-1 win over the fifth-place Stouffville Spirit at the ACC on Friday night.

Connor Adam, Max Skinner, Anrijs Bundzenieks, and Tommy Nitsopoulos scored for the Tigers. Bundzenieks, the Tigers’ smooth-skating, 6’3” Captain, described the keys to the home ice victory: “Sticking to our systems, finishing our chances, and our lock down defense made the difference tonight. Everyone knows their role on this team and we’re getting balanced scoring. It feels amazing to win three in a row, and we’re finishing games better than we did last year.”

The two-year Tiger veteran, who scored 50 points for Aurora in 2025-26, credited his Head Coach Ilir Mehmeti for calling a crucial timeout with 2:34 left in the first period.

“It was a great move. Our line changes needed to be quicker and we were able to settle in with the right line matchups.”

The regional rivals battled to a scoreless tie after twenty minutes of play with goaltenders Hudson Cicchelli and Colby Booth-Housego delivering highlight reel saves for the Spirit and Tigers, respectively.

Twenty-eight seconds into the second period, Stouffville’s PK broke the 0-0 deadlock. Declan Torrance caught the Tigers’ power play unit napping and finished off a nifty two-on-one with Griffen Boyle to give the visitors a 1-0 lead.

It was the only goal that Booth-Housego surrendered on Friday night and Bundzenieks applauded his goaltender’s 27-save performance.

“He played amazing tonight. Colby made some insane saves—especially at the start of the game. After he made that first glove save, he got in a rhythm and we were able to get some goals for him tonight.”

After Booth-Housego yielded the shortie to Torrance, the Tigers roared back 10 seconds later in support of their tender to tie the game. During the resumption of the Aurora power play, Connor Adam found open space in the slot, and batted the puck out of midair past Spirit goaltender Hudson Cicchelli into the white mesh. It was Adam’s first OJHL goal and his timely tally kept the Tigers from deflating after surrendering an early-period shortie.

The black-jerseyed Tigers continued to forecheck with ferocity in the middle frame—reminiscent of their effort last weekend in Newmarket to deprive the Hurricanes of time and space – and the Junior squad’s proficiency yielded three consecutive goals to seal the victory.

Six minutes into the second period, towering power forward Sheamus Gunn earned his sixth assist of the season when he saucered a perfect pass to red-hot Max Skinner who one-timed the puck past Cicchelli to give the home side a 2-1 lead. It was Skinner’s seventh of the season—tying him for third in OJHL goal-scoring.

Less than two minutes later, Bundzenieks gobbled up Nick Frasca’s shot off the end board that took a fortuitous carom to the slot.

The Captain corralled the spinning puck and flipped it over the fallen Cicchelli in one quick motion.

Bundzenieks’s second of the season gave Aurora a 3-1 lead heading into the third period.

Although Stouffville had the edge in play in the third period, the Spirit could not solve Booth-Housego.

The rookie netminder kept Stouffville off the scoreboard by making 12 saves in the final frame and his steady work earned him First Star of the Game honors as determined by OJHL staff.

With 2:20 left in the entertaining contest enjoyed by almost 200 fans, Cicchelli was lifted for an extra attacker. The strategy backfired when speedy Aurora forward Tommy Nitsopoulos won a race for a loose puck off the left boards in the Spirit defensive end and his backhand shot slid into the vacated cage to provide the margin of victory.

The Tigers’ post-game dressing room was a place of raucous celebration after the three-goal victory and Captain Bundzenieks, amid the shouts and hoots of joy, acknowledged the importance of the win prior to the OJHL Showcase in Niagara Falls.

“We need to keep this going. We need to stick to our systems against Mississauga on Monday and King on Wednesday. It’s important to keep this momentum going.”

The surging ninth-place Tigers (3-5-0-0) host the twelfth-place North York Rangers (1-7-0-1) on Friday, October 9 and the second-place Wellington Dukes (6-2-2-0) on Saturday, October 10.

Puck drop at the ACC for both games will be 7 p.m.

By Jim Stewart