Stallions end disappointing season in style blanking hapless Hawkesbury Hawks 11-0
Posted Mar 12, 2010 By Jeff Maguire
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Tweet ThisEMC Sports - No one can say the Kanata Stallions didn't end their season in style!
Stallions completed a very trying 2009-2010 campaign in the Central Junior Hockey League (CJHL) last Tuesday night (March 2) stomping all over Hawkesbury Hawks, the league's worst team, shutting out the visitors 11-0 at the Kanata Recreation Complex (KRC).
The team's one major success story this season, the phenomenal play of centre Allan McPherson, had a near fairy tale conclusion.
The 18-year-old from Kinburn put an exclamation mark on a truly incredible season, scoring four times and adding four assists to pace Kanata's offensive explosion.
McPherson's eight-point game, something which became almost routine for him during his personal season of success, lifted him past the 100-point plateau.
The classy forward ended the campaign with 103 points in 56 games. That guaranteed him a top five finish in the CJHL scoring derby, something virtually unheard of for anyone playing for a team which finished the campaign second last overall.
To further underline his overall contribution to the club, two of his goals on Tuesday came while he was helping kill penalties.
The flashy centre scored an even 40 goals and added 63 assists this season, both of which were team highs.
He was the Stallions' runaway scoring leader, finishing the schedule a full 50 points ahead of teammate Brandon Timm.
It's a performance that has not gone unnoticed by hockey scouts! McPherson is likely to be drafted into the National Hockey League later this spring.
To top off his amazing season the 5' 10", 170 pound forward, who finished three seasons with the Stallions this year, was presented with the 'Most Sportsmanlike Player' award in the CJHL this season.
The league honours were announced earlier in the day. McPherson is the only player from a non-playoff team to make the list.
McPherson claimed the sportsmanlike player award because he picked up just 16 penalty minutes all season.
That despite the fact he was the most prominent Kanata player on the ice in virtually every contest!
His penalty total is the lowest of any player who finished in the Top 10 in league scoring.
When the campaign officially ended Sunday, McPherson stood tied for fourth overall in the league scoring race with Gloucester Rangers star Andrew Creppin.
Both players finished with 103 points although Creppin scored 43 goals.
Unfortunately for Stallions last Tuesday's game was McPherson's last for the hockey team.
Friday his father Bruce confirmed Allan has agreed to sign a hockey scholarship at Clarkson University in Potsdam, New York.
He will begin playing for the Golden Knights hockey club this fall. Clarkson is a National Collegiate Athletic Association Division 1 school and plays in the competitive East Coast Athletic Conference.
McPherson was much coveted and also considered offers from several other American schools including Bowling Green University in Kentucky and Colgate University in Hamilton, New York a Syracuse suburb.
Miss playoffs
The only down note for McPherson is that he and his Kanata teammates miss the playoffs for a second straight season.
The sum total of his post season experience is four games in the 2008 league playoffs. He earned two assists in a series which was swept by Pembroke Lumber Kings, the three-time defending league champions.
Arguably this was Kanata's worst season in the Junior A loop!
Between Sept. 12 and Nov. 13, 2009 Stallions set the all-time league record for futility, losing 26 consecutive games.
The team finished the campaign dead last in the six-team Yzerman Division with just 15 victories in their slightly expanded 62-game CJHL schedule. For the record the club's final mark was 15-42-2-3.
The numbers two and three represent overtime and shootout losses.
They rang up just 35 points and are one of four teams who fail to qualify for the post season.
All of that was forgotten Tuesday in the temporary euphoria of the team's most one-sided triumph of the campaign, in their last game.
Goalie Travis Wilkins made just 16 stops to earn his third shutout of the campaign. Kanata scored six times in the first period to put the game away early.
Hawkesbury, who finished dead last in the league for a second consecutive campaign, were stuck at 11 wins and 23 points after Tuesday's outing game.
Hawks still had three games left on their schedule which ended last Friday against expansion Carleton Place.
They split their weekend home and home with Canadians to finish with a 12-48-1-1 record.
Besides McPherson's final flourish, Kanata also got a huge performance from veteran centre Timm.
The Kanata native finished a distinguished five-year career with the team (he began playing for Stallions in 2005) netting a hat trick and adding two assists.
The durable Timm, who was the club's second leading scorer, finished with 29 goals and 24 assists and appeared in all 62 games for the club this season.
Ryan Donnelly of Stittsville scored once and set up a pair Tuesday to finish as the third leading scorer with 46 points including 19 goals.
Defenceman Jordan Fequet and right winger Gabriel Parent each scored their sixth of the season.
Right winger Brandon Bussey, a native of St. John's, Newfoundland, notched Stallions' final goal of the season when he fired the game's only powerplay marker at 11:13 of the third period.
Veteran defenceman Barry Roytman, Stallions' captain, assisted twice in the game to take his season totals to three goals and 30 assists, the best mark among Kanata blueliners. Like Timm, the overager from Staten Island, New York was also playing his final career game in junior hockey.
Roytman finished fifth in team scoring.
Stallions out shot the hapless Hawks by a big 30-16 mark leading 6-0 and 8-0 at the intermissions.
Philippe Magnan started in goal for Hawkesbury but was replaced by Dylan BrindAmour at the 13:33 mark of the opening frame after allowing four goals on nine shots.
BrindAmour went the rest of the way yielding the final seven goals on 21 shots.
TEMPERS FLARE
After no penalties in the first period and just five minors in the second, things escalated in the third as tempers flared.
At the 1:32 mark Fequet was cited as the aggressor in an incident involving former Stallions' right winger Jordan Warren, a Kanata native.
Fequet was also handed a fighting major and the accompanying game misconduct, while Warren picked up a 10 minute misconduct for inciting an opponent.
Warren was dealt to Hawkesbury in November 2009 in a trade which brought winger Parent to Kanata.
Warren wasn't finished however!
With just under four minutes left to play he tangled with Kanata forward Kris McCarthy in the main event.
Both players were tagged with fighting majors and game misconducts. Warren missed Hawks' next game because the fight occurred in the final 10 minutes of play.
In total Referee Chad White called 16 penalties, 10 of them against Kanata.
A fair turnout of 190 people took in the final Junior
A contest of the season at KRC. Kanata finished 10th overall in attendance this season attracting a total of 6,235 paying customers to their 31 home games.
That gave the club an average attendance of 201 fans per game, slightly better than Kemptville 73's and considerably more than Ottawa Junior Senators. Hawkesbury finished a surprising seventh out of 12 teams in attendance, despite ending the campaign with an even worse mark than last season's squad.
Read the EMC every week for a complete story on the CJHL playoffs as well as the Fred Page Cup Eastern Canadian Junior A championship tournament which will be hosted by Brockville Braves in late April.
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