{"id":34325,"date":"2024-03-14T15:30:02","date_gmt":"2024-03-14T19:30:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=34325"},"modified":"2024-03-21T15:37:45","modified_gmt":"2024-03-21T19:37:45","slug":"whitby-wolves-wreck-central-york-panthers-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/whitby-wolves-wreck-central-york-panthers-party\/","title":{"rendered":"Whitby Wolves wreck Central York Panthers\u2019 party"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

One of the memorable moments in the classic film Forrest Gump is when the protagonist, played by Tom Hanks, punches out a misogynistic hippie at a Black Panthers\u2019 gathering.\u00a0 Gump apologizes to the urban paramilitary unit by drawling: \u201cSorry I ruined your Panthers\u2019 party.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similar words could have spoken by the Whitby Wolves on Sunday afternoon. The visitors skated into SARC for the Panthers\u2019 last regular season home game, edged them 5-3 in a spirited tilt, and wrecked the home club\u2019s \u201cSeniors Day\u201d send-off festivities.  The Panthers rolled out an impressive pre-game ceremony, featuring Team Canada Olympian and PWHL Toronto defender Renata Fast, to honor their four US College-bound players: Captain Hannah Clarke \u2013 Providence College Friars in Providence, Rhode Island; Hannah Franz \u2013 Wilkes University Colonels in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania; Jade Lore \u2013 University of Connecticut Huskies in Storrs, Connecticut; and Hailey Maguire \u2013 Big Green of Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fast dropped the puck in the pregame ceremonial faceoff between the captains whose squads were both in need of two points. The Wolves are battling Burlington for the OWHL\u2019s third seed. The Panthers are in a four-team dogfight with Mississauga, Cambridge, and Waterloo for the eighth seed. Seeds 1-8 in the OWHL earn a bye into the upcoming provincial playoffs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On a blustery and snowy March afternoon, the similarly icy SARC was rammed to capacity with hundreds of fans assembled in the bleachers and also congregated six-deep in the mezzanine\u2014including dozens of young Panthers players sporting the organization\u2019s colors, catching a glimpse of an Olympics and PWHL hero, and watching two terrific U22 hockey clubs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, after the emotional pre-game ceremony and a big win in Burlington on Saturday, the Panthers came out flat and trailed 4-1 halfway through the second period\u2014a fact bemoaned by Head Coach Steve Dempsey who was philosophical about the untimely loss to the Wolves: \u201cEmotions were running high and it was hard for our players to compartmentalize the celebrations that took place in the dressing room and on the ice. Their lifetime achievement in a sport was being recognized. We take a lot of pride as a hockey club in our players\u2019 achievements. It\u2019s understandable that we didn\u2019t have the same fire and didn\u2019t do the little things that we did yesterday against Burlington. We just didn\u2019t put forth the level of execution into our game plan as we did on Saturday.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coach Dempsey continued to contrast the weekend results: \u201cI\u2019m hoping that today\u2019s game is an anomaly because we looked playoff-ready on Saturday in Burlington, but didn\u2019t look that way this afternoon.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a \u201cplayoff-ready\u201d 3-1 win on Saturday versus the Barracudas in Burlington, the Panthers fell behind early on Sunday afternoon. Five minutes into the game, Wolves\u2019 forward Rylan Haslam created space off the right circle and sniped a puck high glove side past Panthers\u2019 netminder Izzy Whynot to give the visitors an early 1-0 lead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Panthers evened the score ninety seconds later at 13:32 when Alessia Stoikos fired a wrist shot from the left faceoff circle that beat Wolves\u2019 goalie Mya Lucifora high short side.  Assists were earned by Klaire Essex and Franz on the tying goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, Sydney Sawyer one-timed a short-handed goal off the pipe and past Whynot at 9:48 to restore the Wolves\u2019 lead.  Less than three minutes later, on a Whitby power play, Haslam\u2019s second goal gave her team a 3-1 lead that deflated the large crowd assembled at SARC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Equally-deflating was the Wolves\u2019 fourth goal in the second period that came after the Panthers kept the visitors pinned in their own zone and poured on the pressure, but Hannah Thornton flicked a backhand high over Whynot\u2019s shoulder to give Whitby a commanding 4-1 lead at 10:45.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After penalty killer Cheyenne Degeer was stoned by Lucifora on a clear-cut breakaway and teammate Clara Williams beat Lucifora but not the goal post at 5:25, \u201cCaptain Clarkey\u201d ended fifteen minutes of frustration for her club when she rifled a wrist shot past Lucifora at 4:48 to pull the Panthers within two by the second intermission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With a big comeback needed, Coach Dempsey deployed five of his top-scoring players\u2014Li, Clarke, Degeer, Buckley, and McGuire \u2013 to start the third period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The strategy worked immediately. Within 15 seconds, Li lit the lamp behind Lucifora, with assists earned by Buckley and Degeer, to pull the Panthers to within one of the visitors. Whynot made four big saves in the ensuing four minutes to keep the Wolves off the scoreboard and preserve the possibility of a Panthers\u2019 comeback.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, the hungry Wolves would not be denied on Seniors Day with seven of their own graduates in the lineup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alice Brock fired a shot high blocker side from between the circles to restore Whitby\u2019s two-goal lead\u2014a dart that took the air out of the blue, red, and yellow balloons festooning the north end zone plexiglass behind Whynot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Kylah Kenyon of the Wolves drew a penalty at 4:21 of the final frame, Coach Dempsey called a timeout, pulled Whynot to place an extra attacker in the Wolves\u2019 zone, and tried to manoeuvre another miracle on ice.  Sadly, Sunday was not the day for turning water into wine for Central York.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Junior Panthers end their OWHL regular season schedule with a two-game road trip: on Saturday, March 16 in North York versus the Storm (15-19-1-3) and on St. Patrick\u2019s Day in Toronto versus the Leaside Wildcats (12-25-2-3).\u00a0 Two wins will guarantee Central York the sought-after eighth seed and a bye to the provincial championships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Jim Stewart<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the memorable moments in the classic film Forrest Gump is when the protagonist, played by Tom Hanks, punches out a misogynistic hippie at a Black Panthers\u2019 gathering.\u00a0 Gump apologizes to the urban paramilitary unit by drawling: \u201cSorry I ruined your Panthers\u2019 party.\u201d Similar words could have spoken by the Whitby Wolves on Sunday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":34326,"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-34325","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\/2024\/03\/2024-03-14-01.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-8VD","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-16 08:06:39","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\/34325","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=34325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34325\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}