The week of Oct. 4th to Nov.7 /09 has been an up and down month for the Nickel City Sons AAA Midgets.
It all started on Sunday Oct 4th at home when the Sons suffered a tough 6-5 loss to the much improved Kapuskasing Flyers.
After the tough home loss to Kap. The hockey club set their sites on the following weekend when they were to host the undefeated Soo North Stars for two games at the Chelmsford Arena.
The North Stars who were 6-0-0 for the season came in with a stingy goals against average of less then 2 goals a game.
Coach Brent Battistellis figured if we could score 5 or 6 goals against this club we should be able to come up with a couple of wins. It did not work out for the Nickel City Sons as the Soo hammered them twice by scores of 12-6 and 8-4. The upside was that we could score goals against this club but have to cut down on goals against. Putting this behind them the Sons went on to Ottawa to participate in the Ottawa 67s Tournament.
After losing their first game 5-3 to Quebec they went on to collect four wins and a tie and a final game birth against Waterloo. After a scoreless first and second period the Waterloo club scored 4 goals in the last nine minutes (2 empty net goals) to win the Tournament. The coaching staff was very proud of their team and looked forward to getting back to league play.
On Sunday Oct. 26th at the Chelmsford Arena the Sons despite feeling the effects of the Flu and missing several key players dug deep and defeated the Kap. Flyers 5-3.
The following Sat they locked horns with the Soo in the first game of a home and home series .
Once again the Sons were able to score 5 times but the Soo ended up getting 9 in a 9-5 loss for the Sons.
On Sunday the club hopped on the bus at 7:AM and headed for an afternoon tilt in the Soo .
The clubs battled to a 3-3 tie and gained a very valuable point.
The final test in this five week span was the 30th Big Nickel Tournament where the club was going to play all guaranteed game in Chelmsford. The hockey club battled hard in this tournament and suffered some heart breaking losses (3-2 to Oshawa) 3-2 to York Simcoe Express and a 4-3 overtime loss to Toronto Red Wings in games where they out played their opponents. They did however come up with a 7-1 victory over the Timmins Majors in the other game but did not advance. The positive thing about the first 2 tournaments have proven that Sons can compete with the Southern Teams .
Next actions is Saturday Nov. 14th as the sons Host the Timmins Majors @ 2:30 pm and Sunday Nov. 15th against New Liskeard Cubs @ 1:30 pm both games at the Chelmsford Arena.
Then the Sons travel to Sudbury on Wed. Nov. 18th for a 7:20 game against the Sudbury Nickel Capital Wolves at Countryside arena.
