Circling the Great North
Sudbury U18 Wolves and the reigning champion North Bay Trappers are the pace setters in the early going of the Great North Under 18 Hockey League regular season.
The U18 Wolves have a record of 5-0-1 through their first six outings while the Trappers are 4-0-1 after five games.
Up next are the Timmins Majors with a 2-1-1 record, the Kapuskasing Flyers at 1-2-2, the New Liskeard Cubs at 1-1-0, Sudbury U16 Wolves with a 1-2-0 mark and the Soo Jr. Greyhounds who are winless and pointless following three road losses to North Bay to begin the 2023-2024 season.
Scoring goals was a problem for the Soo in its three losses to North Bay as the Jr. Greyhounds only put the puck in the net three times. In fairness to the Jr. Greyhounds, they spent 72 minutes in the penalty box compared to 46 for the hometown Trappers in the three games.
The Jr. Greyhounds will be out to try to get into the win column this weekend when they play host to Kapuskasing on Saturday at 3 p.m. at GFL Memorial Gardens and Sunday at noon at John Rhodes Community Centre.
On the scoring chart, Aleksander Duguay of the U18 Wolves leads the league with five goals, six assists, 11 points. Next up are Lex Lamontaigne of Kapuskasing with six goals, two assists, eight points and Benjamin Brunton of North Bay with 2-5-7 totals.
Then it is five players who all have six points apiece — Bryden Shank, Felix St. Onge and Nick Labrecque of the U18 Wolves, Ian Lachance of Timmins and Spencer Thibodeau of Kapuskasing.
Top goalies to date have been Logan Coates and Carson Ruddy of North Bay, Alex Hall of Timmins and Nick Marson of the Soo.