Thrills of an NOJHL season
Sudbury Cubs are the champions of the Northern Ontario Jr. Hockey League for the third successive season by virtue of an unbeaten playoff run that produced a perfect 12-0 record. And it isn’t just Sudbury that accounted for some splendid story lines from the ’25-26 NOJHL season.
PARITY. Six of the 11 teams in the NOJHL finished above the .500 mark over the course of the regular season — and the seventh place Soo Eagles were just below the watershed level. Sudbury topped the regular season standings with 83 points while a mere six points separated the next four teams. Powassan Voodoos and Hearst Lumberjacks had 75 points apiece followed by the Timmins Rock with 72 and the Soo Thunderbirds with 69. Espanola Paper Kings also finished above the .500 mark with 58 points from 52 games and a solid sixth place finish. Then came the Soo Eagles with 49 points, just short of the .500 mark. Kirkland Lake Gold Miners snuck into the eighth and final playoff spot with 41 points, just ahead of the Blind River Beavers with 38 and the Iroquois Falls Storm with 35. French River Rapids finished at the bottom of the standings.
CUBS ON A SPRING RUN. Sudbury capped off a first place regular season record of 39-8-5 to win all 12 of its playoff matches and advance to the upcoming Canadian Jr. A Hockey League’s Centennial Cup national championship tournament that is slated to be held May 7-17 in Summerside, Prince Edward Island. Led by playoff MVP Mason Walker — a 2008 birth year forward and signed Ontario Hockey League prospect of the Sudbury Wolves — the Cubs took the measure of the Kirkland Lake Gold Miners, Soo Eagles and Timmins Rock, all in four game sweeps, to skate to their third straight NOJHL title. Walker (in above photo by Tanner Wallace) is one of several OHL draft picks who developed in the NOJHL over the course of the ’25-26 season.
WHERE EAGLES FLY. They lost their first nine games of the ’25-26 regular season and recovered enough to finish in seventh place among the 11 teams of the NOJHL — and earn one of eight playoff spots. But the Soo Eagles were far from done. Following the regular season slate that got them into the seventh spot and just below the .500 mark with a record of 23-26-3, the Eagles had the daunting task of facing the second place Powassan Voodoos in the first round of the playoffs. Powassan had finishing a whopping 26 points ahead of the Eagles during the regular season and as such, the Voodoos were clear cut favourites to take the best of seven series. The Eagles, however, had other ideas. After winning the first two games of the series in stunning style right in Powassan, the Eagles returned home to Pullar Stadium and completed a sweep of the Voodoos with a pair of overtime victories for one of the biggest upsets in recent NOJHL playoff history.
SEVENTH HEAVEN. Arguably the most exciting series of the playoffs came in the opening round and featured the no. 4 seed Timmins Rock and the no. 5 seed Soo Thunderbirds. And it was the Rock that prevailed at home in the seventh and deciding game with a 5-2 victory over the Thunderbirds before more than 1,000 fans at venerable McIntyre Arena in Timmins.
