Eagles lead Border Battle

The tide has turned in the long running Twin Soo Border Battle between the Soo Thunderbirds and Soo Eagles. While the Ontario based Thunderbirds won the war over the past couple of years in particular it is the Eagles of Michigan who are in command thus far this season.

Since the Thunderbirds took the opening game of the ’24-25 cross border series by a 4-3 score, the Eagles have since rebounded with three successive victories. The wins for the Eagles over the Thunderbirds have all been by healthy margins as per 5-2, 6-2 and 7-2 victories.

The nearby rivals will meet twice more on the ’24-25 Northern Ontario Jr. Hockey League regular season slate — January 4 at Pullar Stadium in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan and February 1 at John Rhodes Community Center in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario.

Overall, the Eagles have been the better team than the Thunderbirds by a good margin thus far into the ’24-25 NOJHL season. Passed the midway point of the campaign, the Eagles put up 38 points from a record of 18-6-2, well ahead of the Thunderbirds and their 26 points from a record of 12-14-2. Of further note, the Eagles are 10-0-1 in their past 11 contests while the Thunderbirds are 2-7-1 over their past 10 outings.

Not only have the Eagles dominated the Thunderbirds thus far this season but they done so in a good way with key personnel recruited right from the back yard of their cross river rivals. Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario residents who are part of the Michigan based Eagles include the staff of head coach Jeremy Rebek, assistant coaches Joe Miller and Kelsey Wilson and goalie coaches Donnie Bruni and Noah Zeppa as well as three rookie skaters in defensemen Cole Wreggitt and Liam Watson and forward Coulson Bell.

Rebek is in his first term as head coach of the Eagles after several seasons of success — including multiple league championships — as a top assistant coach with the Thunderbirds. He brought Miller with him to the Eagles from the Thunderbirds during the past off season.

Meanwhile, Bruno Bragagnolo, who is the long time face of the Eagles in the Michigan Sault as president, general manager and assistant coach, is a big fan of the new look and beginning that Rebek and his staff have brought to the team.

“Jeremy and his coaching staff have done a great job for us this season,” Bragagnolo relayed to Hockey News North. “Our players are very well coached and very well prepared. I couldn’t be happier with the job that Jeremy and his staff have done. The way we practice carries on into the games and I think our record speaks for itself.”

In turn, Rebek, Wilson and Bruni, while appearing on separate editions of the Hockey North Show podcast, have all spoke in glowing terms of Bragagnolo as one of the best junior hockey operators around — and the Eagles in general as a franchise that is well run on both the hockey and business sides.

To be sure, the Eagles having won three of four games from the Thunderbirds thus far this season represents a major turnaround from the past two years in particular when the two teams met a whopping total of 24 times.

In ’22-23, the Thunderbirds took nine of 12 regular season matches from the Eagles. And in ’23-24, the rivalry continued to favour the Thunderbirds in a big way as they also won nine of the 12 showdowns with the Eagles.

So far so good in ’24-25 for the Eagles. But there should not be any counting out of the Thunderbirds who have been such a model of consistency since entering the NOJHL way back in 1999 that not one of their teams has ever had a losing season.

Battle of the border is on high alert.