
Big Win For the Fans In Last Regular Season Game
The Peterborough Century 21 Lakers put on a show for the fans on Fan Appreciation Night, beating the Owen Sound North Stars 14-2 in front of 2,887 Memorial Centre patrons.
It was the Lakers final regular season game. They head into the playoffs in third place with an 11-7-0 record, and on a four-game win streak. They’ll meet the second-place Oakville Rock, losers to Brooklin on Wednesday 14-1. Oakville finished with a 12-6-0 record.
“I still think we have more,” expressed captain Robert Hope. “We’re playing better in our last four games. There are a couple mistakes that we can clean up but it’s good to see that we are moving in the right direction. We’ve had to be in playoff mode. It’s been a long time [since we’ve played late in July] and we weren’t in the playoffs yet. We let a couple slip earlier in the year – we just didn’t play that great and the league’s a lot better.”
Owen Sound (1-16-0) has one more game before their season ends; they host Cobourg on Saturday. Thursday, they had at least 10 call-ups on their roster including both goaltenders and Adam Churchill and Reagan Martinell from the Ennismore James Gang.
Frank Coyle opened the scoring, sneaking in alone and faking far side before shooting. Owen Sound replied with their only goal of the period, scored by Churchill.
Matt Gilray found himself in front of the net and stretched far side to make it 2-1. Ryan Lanchbury came out of a swarm of players and put in a sneaky underhand roll for Peterborough’s third. Mike Robinson scored twice in 32 seconds for goals four and five: his first as he came in from the side, and the second was a crease dive off a Brad McCulley pass. McCulley then followed that up with a rocket from the outside before Deacan Knott made the full-floor pass up to Lanchbury for his second of the game and a 7-1 lead.
All of this occurred before the game was 10 minutes and three seconds old.
“It’s tough,” said McCulley. “They’ve had a tough season getting some guys to show and the ones who did show worked really hard. It’s nice that right now we’re kind of finding our stride. It was good for us. You don’t take one off a week before playoffs.”
In the second, Rob McGrayne scored for Owen Sound early, but the Lakers dominated the second half of the period with goals from Lanchbury, McCulley and Jr. A call-up Nate Sage.
Peterborough outscored Owen Sound 4-0 in the third period. McCulley got the hat trick on an underhanded power play marker, Lanchbury scored his fourth, and DJ Clark (shorthanded) and Thomas Hoggarth added singles.
Deacan Knott made 38 saves.
It was the largest crowd of the season, in part due to the annual pilgrimage of Ennismore’s Camp Moshava to the arena. The campers and counsellors brought untold amounts of energy to the game.
“It’s awesome. They never stop going, up there,” said McCulley, who joked that he got confused when the campers started the wave. “They actually had a countdown that kinda screwed me up, I thought the period was ending. It looks like they’re having a blast.”
“It was good energy,” enthused Hope. “It’s nice whenever you get the chance to play in front of a rowdy crowd especially at home. They’ve been coming for years and people look forward to it. Away teams, guys that haven’t played here before, they’re excited for it.”
The Lakers travel to Oakville on Tuesday, August 4 for Game 1 of their best-of-five series. Game 2 is at the Memorial Centre on Thursday, August 6 with Game 3 back in Oakville on Saturday, August 8. If necessary, Game 4 will be Tuesday, August 11 in Peterborough and Game 5 Wednesday, August 12 in Oakville. Away games can be streamed on FloSports.com with a subscription, and home games can be seen both on FloSports as well as on YourTV.
PLAYOFF TICKET INFORMATION
“Pay as You Play” ticket packages are now on sale at https://am.ticketmaster.com/peterboroughlakers/buy. Current season ticket holders must opt-in to Pay as You Play by August 4 at 9 a.m. to have their preferred seats held for each round. With Pay as You Play, your credit card is only charged when games become necessary. The offer is open to non-season ticket holders as well.
If you have any questions, please reach out to the Doane Grant Thornton Box Office. Please note the box office is closed Saturday, Sunday and Monday for the Civic Holiday.
Single-game tickets go on sale August 5 at 10 a.m.
Of Note
- Peterborough had 49 shots on goal while Owen Sound had 40
- Jake Withers was 13/14 on faceoffs; the Lakers chose to rest him for the third period. Frank Coyle was 1/4 and Matt Gilray 0/1. The North Stars won 5 of 19.
- Peterborough was 1/4 on the power play with one shorthanded goal, and Owen Sound was 0/2.
- The Lakers honoured the late Gerry Armstrong with a moment of silence before the game. Armstrong passed away this week at 93. He worked as a Memorial Centre usher for nearly 40 years!
- Ted Higgins is raising money once again for the Parkinson Canada Superwalk, and on Thursday, the Lakers made a $2000 donation to his campaign. You can donate by clicking here.
Full Lakers Scoring
Ryan Lanchbury 4-3
Brad McCulley 3-3
Mike Robinson 2-0
Thomas Hoggarth 1-5
Nate Sage 1-3
Daniel Clark 1-2
Matt Gilray 1-1
Frank Coyle 1-0
Justin Sykes 0-2
Deacan Knott 0-2
Jake Withers 0-1
Jordan Stouros 0-1
Colton Armstrong 0-1
PHOTOS BY DAVID PICKERING @PICKS_PICS


















































