{"id":33563,"date":"2023-09-15T12:33:25","date_gmt":"2023-09-15T16:33:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=33563"},"modified":"2023-09-21T17:37:03","modified_gmt":"2023-09-21T21:37:03","slug":"stouffville-spirit-spoil-the-tigers-opening-night-by-edging-aurora-4-3-in-ojhl-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/stouffville-spirit-spoil-the-tigers-opening-night-by-edging-aurora-4-3-in-ojhl-action\/","title":{"rendered":"Stouffville Spirit spoil the Tigers\u2019 opening night by edging Aurora 4-3 in OJHL Action"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It\u2019s been ten years since the Aurora Tigers hung a banner at the ACC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2013-14, the Town\u2019s Junior A Hockey team earned an OJHL North-East Conference pennant.  Judging by the number of bold, roster-altering off-season roster moves, the 2023-24 Tigers want to get back to those ethereal days of dominating divisions, enjoying deep runs in the playoffs, and winning championships as they did in 2004 and 2007.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Tigers are so confident that this year\u2019s core roster is filled with promise that they have imported three players from British Columbia\u2014Bode Pearson, Jobey Pearson, and Carson Brown\u2014as well as Max Cervjakovs from Latvia and Philip Goduco from Illinois to significantly alter and augment the team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even more dramatically, ten days before the OJHL season began, Tigers management jettisoned their returning captain and leading scorer Luca Stanojevic to the Toronto Junior Canadiens for future considerations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stanojevic\u2019s captaincy was transferred to OJHL veteran Ethan Lindsay\u2014another of the team\u2019s prized off-season acquisitions. Lindsay brings with him championship pedigree after winning an OJHL title with the 2021-22 Pickering Panthers and he took Friday\u2019s ceremonial faceoff on behalf of the Tigers to signal the changing of the guard. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A transformed Tigers team stepped on to the ice on Friday night in search of a season-opening victory, but the visiting Stouffville Spirit ruined the hockey party at the ACC which included a spot-lit, ceremonial, red carpet puck-drop by many local dignitaries\u2014among them Mayor Tom Mrakas and Team Governor Jim Thomson, whose Aurora Sports Hall of Fame induction in November was also being recognized by the hockey club.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Spirit, after splitting a pair of 7-3 exhibition decisions with the Tigers last week, edged the home side 4-3 on Friday to kick off the 2023-24 season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both teams and the 250 fans assembled endured a 52-minute game delay as the ACC crew struggled mightily to replace a sheet of plexiglass that was shattered by an errant puck during the pre-game skate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The final installation of a custom-cut pane of glass was met with a rousing ovation by those gathered for the big game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Tigers came out hitting from the opening faceoff. Thirty seconds into the game, their pugnacious, newly-minted Captain had a golden opportunity to endear himself to the ACC faithful when he was gifted with a fortuitous bounce in the slot with an open net, but Lindsay whiffed on the shot attempt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Spirit turned that missed opportunity into a period-long onslaught against the Tigers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of the celebratory air evaporated from the building when the swift-skating Spirit scored six minutes into the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Kioussis, with assists from Nathan Twohey and Odaro Ewere, slipped the puck past Aurora goaltender Will Gounas to stake the Spirit to a 1-0 lead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the Tigers revealed their early-season resilience when BC import forward Carson Brown scored the team\u2019s first goal of 2023-24.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brown\u2019s power play marker \u2013 just past the midway point of the period \u2013 tied the game when he deftly tipped the puck in the slot past Spirit goaltender Matteo Gennaro.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In response, the Spirit presented its own prowess with the man advantage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stouffville\u2019s power play was truly impressive in the opening frame as the Spirit converted both of their extra man opportunities with \u201cfearful symmetry\u201d \u2013 both power play goals were scored within six seconds and both were scored by Zack Corte.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Spirit forward\u2019s offensive skills were on full display during both of his power play goals. Corte\u2019s snap shot restored Stouffville\u2019s one-goal lead ninety seconds after the Tigers\u2019 tying goal and his laser wrist shot from the point increased the visitors\u2019 lead to 3-1 going into the second period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Spirit\u2019s specialty teams sparkled again less than four minutes into the middle frame when their penalty killers found the scoresheet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stouffville\u2019s Captain Odaro Ewere got behind both Tigers\u2019 point men on an Aurora power play and, on a clear-cut breakaway, he rolled a changeup off his stick that handcuffed Goumas and gave the visitors a 4-1 lead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three acrobatic mid-period saves by Goumas kept the Tigers close and Aurora responded offensively. Speedy Assistant Captain Ryan Evenhuis burst over the blue line and fired a wrist shot past Gennaro to narrow the Spirit\u2019s lead to 4-2. Evenhuis\u2019s goal gave the home team a lift and they created numerous chances as the second frame drew to a close.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Tigers dominated play in the third period as they out-chanced and out-skated their guests.  Aurora\u2019s diligence was rewarded at 12.49 when rangy center Kyle Baston scored the prettiest goal of the evening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Baston buried a perfect pass top shelf to pull the Tigers to within one and caught the attention of Head Coach Greg Johnston.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was a goal scorer\u2019s goal created by a great pass and great forechecking.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coach Johnston also credited his goaltender\u2019s work in the second and third period for keeping the Tigers in the game: \u201cWill made some big saves tonight, especially in the third period. His big stops gave us a chance and allowed us to battle through the final period.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Johnston was also pleased with this team\u2019s effort in the third period: \u201cIt\u2019s Game One, but we didn\u2019t start well enough in the first period. However, the third period was the real story tonight for us. We gave ourselves a chance to salvage a point and our guys carried the play in the final twenty minutes. Hopefully, we\u2019ll take that momentum into Stouffville on Saturday night.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

History repeated itself when 2023-24 Tigers\u2019 Captain Lucas Stanojevic was traded to the Toronto Junior Canadiens two weeks ago. Stanojevic\u2014a classy presence on and off the ice\u2013 led the Tigers in scoring last season with 33 goals and 27 assists in 54 games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was promoted to Captain after Tigers\u2019 management traded Connor Van Weelie, the Captain of the 2022-23 Tigers, to the Canadiens to shift the Aurora roster one month into the season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s the second consecutive season that the Aurora Tigers have traded their Captain to \u201cJRC\u201d in an early-season transaction. The Toronto Junior Canadiens are in the Tigers\u2019 division this season in the revamped OJHL.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been ten years since the Aurora Tigers hung a banner at the ACC. In 2013-14, the Town\u2019s Junior A Hockey team earned an OJHL North-East Conference pennant.  Judging by the number of bold, roster-altering off-season roster moves, the 2023-24 Tigers want to get back to those ethereal days of dominating divisions, enjoying deep runs […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":33564,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_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},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[24,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-sports","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/2023-09-14-01.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-8Jl","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-16 13:39:00","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\/33563","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=33563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33563\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}