Bottled up in the North
The clock is ticking and time is dwindling on the ’24-25 Northern Ontario Jr. Hockey League regular season. And with less than three weeks to play on the regular season slate, the standings remain bottled up.
For all intents and purposes, the Sudbury Cubs will finish atop the standings while the Hearst Lumberjacks have a pretty good handle on second spot. Meanwhile, the Blind River Beavers and Soo Eagles are within a point of each other in third and fourth place, respectively, with the Timmins Rock within range of both. Soo Thunderbirds and Powassan Voodoos have yet to decide the sixth and seventh slots while the Espanola Paper Kings, Iroquois Falls Storm and French River Rapids are in a fight for the eighth and final playoff spot.
Espanola has 41 points from 46 games, Iroquois Falls has 39 points from 47 games while French River has 35 points from 44 games. Kirkland Lake Gold Miners are out of the playoff picture but can still play spoiler.
Notably, while Espanola is in current possession of the eighth playoff position, the Paper Kings face the daunting task of playing three road games in as many days this weekend — Friday at Hearst, Saturday in Iroquois Falls and Sunday at Kirkland Lake.
All teams play a 52 game regular season slate — and a number of impactful matches remain to be played.
Getting into crunch time for teams
Go Storm they deserve to be in the playoffs with the crowds they have been getting.
At least the Storm was mentioned in this article unlike the Game Day series