The Shawville Pontiacs extended their winning streak to six with another home win on Friday night against the Arnprior Rivermen.
The evening was also Minor Hockey appreciation night, featuring local minor hockey coaches competing in a shootout and a blindfolded relay race during the intermissions to win pizza parties for their teams. The stands were filled with young children in Pontiac Lions gear who brought some serious cheering energy throughout the game.
Despite a quick goal by William Bujold in the first 10 seconds, Arnprior battled back, finishing the first frame tied 3-3.
Coach Darcy Findlay said that he wasn’t pleased with his team’s slow start to the game.
“We weren’t behind at the break, but I wasn’t happy with how we played,” he said. “I gave it to the guys in the intermission about second efforts, and being tougher on pucks and just stronger on our stick. Even on puck retrievals we were soft and slow, and just going through the motions.”
The Pontiacs’ took his advice and came out strong in the second, with Marc-Olivier Racine-Roy and Joey Brennan adding two goals late in the period.
By the third, the home team started running away with it, as captain Quinn O’Brien netted two of his own, and new signing Jason Argue got the final goal to stretch their lead to five.
Findlay highlighted the Pontiacs’ two stars of the game, O’Brien and Racine-Roy, who had four goals and three assists between them. He also had high praise for Pontiac Junior B alumni Argue, whose physicality was an asset to their offence.
“I told him we’re not looking for him to just go out there and just be a meatball, you’re going to forecheck hard, you’re going to be intimidating, but you’re going to be smart and play between the whistles,” Findlay said. “I thought he had a very good game, he scored a goal. You could hear the other team yelling, ‘He’s coming, he’s coming!’ on the forecheck which was pretty funny.”
In the dying minutes of the game, the Pontiacs’ Xavier Roy gave the Rivermen a sendoff with his fists, dropping the gloves with Arnprior’s Isaac Kelly, much to the crowd’s delight.
Findlay said that after a chaotic performance in last week’s game against South Grenville, he told his players to stop pussyfooting around.
“I told them before the game, because of what happened last week with all of the after the whistle crap, ‘Play whistle to whistle and if you’re going to go, go,’” he said. “None of this pushing and slapping, you know what I mean. He took it to heart, it was good.”
Findlay said their next home game against the Madawaska Valley Wolves would be an important one.
“The one this Friday at home against Madawaska is going to be a really big one,” he said. “We’ve never seen them before, they played in the western division last year. They’ve got a lot of local ties, a lot of guys from Renfrew and Arnprior that played Junior B here back in the day. So there’s a lot of ties to the community and they’re right behind us in the standings, so it’s a four-point game.”
In addition, the evening will be a toy drive to support the local Angel Tree project, in collaboration with Shawville Giant Tiger.
