{"id":23087,"date":"2019-02-28T18:06:23","date_gmt":"2019-02-28T23:06:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=23087"},"modified":"2019-03-07T00:17:06","modified_gmt":"2019-03-07T05:17:06","slug":"tigers-draw-hurricanes-in-ojhl-first-round","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/tigers-draw-hurricanes-in-ojhl-first-round\/","title":{"rendered":"Tigers draw Hurricanes in OJHL first round"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

The Battle of Yonge Street is back.
\nFans of both the Junior A Aurora Tigers and Newmarket Hurricanes should have no problem making the six-kilometre commute between home rinks for each game of their upcoming best-of-seven series, in the first round of the Ontario Junior Hockey League playoffs.
\nAnd if Thursday\u2019s penultimate game on both sides\u2019 regular season schedule is any indication, they are in for quite a ride.
\nThe rival squads went through a pair of overtimes in a 3 – 3 tie, before the final buzzer left the teams with a point apiece.
\nNewcomer Adam O\u2019Marra buried his first goal in a Tigers uniform, playing in just his third game as a 16-year old. Payton Schaly and Cameron Neaylon also found the back of the net for the Tigers.
\nAurora closed out their schedule on Friday in a 3 \u2013 0 shutout loss to the Markham Royals, who cemented their North division title.
\nThe loss left the Tigers with a completely even regular season final standing, finishing with a record of 24-24-3-3: six points back of the Hurricanes, and eleven back of the division-winning Royals.
\nOJHL analyst Alex Bloomfield said he saw a resurgence in the Tigers\u2019 game despite just the one point over the weekend.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s a detraction from a huge slump,\u201d said Bloomfield. \u201c\u2026It looked like a bit of a different team from what we\u2019ve seen for the past month and a half before where they were just sliding down the standings.
\n\u201cBut this team, I think in the wake of losing Joseph Mizzi\u2026they\u2019ve got to replace that scoring somehow, I think they are coming together as a team\u2026they\u2019re able to head in with some pretty clear heads now.\u201d
\nBefore turning professional with the ECHL\u2019s Utah Grizzlies earlier this month, Mizzi lead not only his Tigers\u2019 teammates in scoring, but the entire OJHL. As it stands, Mizzi\u2019s 32 goals are still good for second in the league.
\nDespite the monumental loss to the lineup, Bloomfield said he still wouldn\u2019t \u201cwrite them off\u201d for a big playoff push.
\n\u201cThere\u2019s some veterans on that team with OHL experience\u2026I wouldn\u2019t write them off in the first round of the playoffs, absolutely not against Newmarket who\u2019s not far above them in the standings or overall talent-wise, even without a guy like Mizzi.\u201d
\nHurricanes captain Sheldon Nolan told the OJHL website staff the upcoming series will have \u201cfireworks.\u201d
\n\u201cWe go into this series with the home ice advantage we have worked for all season,\u201d Nolan told the OJHL. \u201cThe Tigers’ strength is their offense and I feel if we can play a tight, fast game we can shut them down. Special teams are going to play an important role for both teams and if we stay out of the box and capitalize on our chances we will be successful.\u201d
\nThe devil is in the details in the final season series standing between the longtime rivals: a finish of four wins for the Hurricanes and two for the Tigers to go along with the tie, though Newmarket went 4-0-1 to close it out.
\nThe Hurricanes will enjoy home-ice advantage throughout the opening round based on regular season standings, hosting four of the possible seven games at the Ray Twinney Complex.
\nThe rink will host game one Thursday evening at 7:30 p.m., before the Aurora Community Centre gets its first taste of playoff hockey in game two Friday at 7:30 p.m.
\nGame Three returns to Newmarket for a Sunday matinee, while game four will be at the ACC on Wednesday.
\nIf necessary, game five will go Mar. 7, game six on March 6, and game seven will be played on March 10.
\nFor stats, schedules, and more information, visit www.auroratigers.pointstreaksites.com.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Battle of Yonge Street is back.
\nFans of both the Junior A Aurora Tigers and Newmarket Hurricanes should have no problem making the six-kilometre commute between<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":23090,"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-23087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/2018-02-28-03.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-60n","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-22 16:08:17","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\/23087","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=23087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23087\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}