{"id":19571,"date":"2018-01-17T16:29:15","date_gmt":"2018-01-17T21:29:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=19571"},"modified":"2018-01-24T17:37:07","modified_gmt":"2018-01-24T22:37:07","slug":"tigers-battling-hurricanes-for-north-division-supremacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/tigers-battling-hurricanes-for-north-division-supremacy\/","title":{"rendered":"Tigers battling Hurricanes for North division supremacy"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jake Courtepatte<\/strong><\/p>\n

As the OJHL regular season winds down, the playoff race is heating up.
\nThe Aurora Tigers are among the hottest with just over a month left in the regular season, earning an \u201chonourable mention\u201d in this week\u2019s top-20 rankings of the best Junior A hockey teams in Canada.
\nSunday\u2019s 7 \u2013 1 win over the Pickering Panthers tied the Tigers with the Newmarket Hurricanes for tops in the OJHL\u2019s North division, a title Aurora has been chasing for months against a very talented Hurricanes squad.
\nIt took a 13-game point streak, dating back to the first day of December, for the Tigers to catch the Hurricanes, knotted at 52 points apiece and two ahead of the Markham Royals.
\nWith the entire OJHL suspending play on Friday night due to weather conditions, both Aurora and Newmarket had just one game on the past week\u2019s schedule. While the lowly Stouffville Spirit managed a 1 \u2013 1 tie with the Hurricanes on Sunday, Aurora was taking the Panthers to school led by a goalie clinic from Bradley Van Schubert.
\nVan Schubert tightened his grip on the team\u2019s starting position by making 25 saves on 26 shots, while Austin Eastman and Joseph Mizzi contributed a trio of points each.
\nTwelve players recorded at least a point in the win, storming back after a Pickering goal just over two minutes in for seven straight.
\nCaptain Jake Bricknell capitalized on goal number twenty-two of the year, just one day after earning player of the month honours for December. The ex-OHLer has been the top difference maker for an Aurora team that struggled mightily last season, earning the \u2018C\u2019 before the drop of the puck this year and leading the team with 66 points in 36 games.
\nThose numbers are good for second place in league scoring, behind just Andrew Petrucci of the Toronto Lakeshore Patriots.
\nWith just fifteen games left on the regular season schedule, the race for the top position in the league\u2019s North division could come down to the wire. While Markham resides just two points back of both the Tigers and Hurricanes, the leading teams have three games in hand, giving them quite an advantage.
\nThe Yonge Street rivals will meet one more time this season, on February 8 at Newmarket\u2019s Ray Twinney Complex, where the Hurricanes have lost just four games in regulation this season.
\nIn the meantime, Aurora plays a rare Tuesday night road game in Lindsay after press time, followed up by a return to the Aurora Community Centre on Friday to host the Whitby Fury, their first home game of 2018.
\nPuck drop is set for 7:30p.m.
\nFor stats, schedules, and more information, visit www.auroratigers.pointstreaksites.com.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the OJHL regular season winds down, the playoff race is heating up.
\nThe Aurora Tigers are…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-55F","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-18 10:00:26","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19571\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}