1st-place Trappers get bye
Finishing first in the Great North Midget Hockey League carries the reward of a first-round playoff bye for the North Bay Trappers.
With one game to play in the 2016-2017 regular season, North Bay has a six-point lead on the second-place Soo Greyhounds and Sudbury Nickel Capital Wolves, who with two matches remaining apiece, cannot catch the Trappers for top spot in the seven-team loop.
The Greyhounds and Nickel Capital Wolves will decide second-and-third places when they face off in a pair of games to close the regular season this weekend in Sault Ste. Marie.
As North Bay gets the opening-round bye, the other six teams will meet in three separate best-of-three playoff sets next week. The three winners of the opening round will then proceed to the semi-final playoffs with North Bay.
A well-balanced club, North Bay will get to the second round of the playoffs as the team with the best goals against average in the league and with a high-end lineup that includes goalies Joel Rainville and Drew Joyal, defensemen Jacob Gravelle, Dylan Bond and Payton Vescio and a collection of point-per-game forwards led by Nick Davis, Ryan Mills and captain Mason McMahon.
PHOTO: Captain Mason McMahon, of the first-place North Bay Trappers, in Great North Midget Hockey League action from January against the Soo Greyhounds. (Photo by Dave Dale/Postmedia.)
Big congrats!
This may be the best midget Team that we have had in North Bay since the Pinehill days.