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Locals make huge impact for Voodoos

Local former Trappers scored more than 110 tallies for the Voodoos in regular-season championship season
20200129 voodoos Yachmenev
Tomas Yachmenev, son of former NHLer Vitali Yachmenev, had his first 30-goal season and 73 in three seasons with the Voodoos. File photo by April Peterson.
The Powassan Voodoos had a very memorable season, capturing first place overall in the NOJHL regular season before the COVID-19 crisis led to the shut down the remainder of the 2020 NOJHL playoff season just before the Voodoos were set to face the Cochrane Crunch.  

The team was led offensively by Parker Bowman, Gregory Trudeau-Paquet who finished second and third in league scoring, and in goal by Team Canada East and NOJHL First Team All-star goalie Owen Say.

However, there was no denying the huge impact local North Bay & area players had during a season where the Voodoos finished 45-9-1-1 in the regular season and were ranked seventh overall in the entire 131-team Canadian Junior Hockey League. 

In fact, combined local players accounted for more than 110 regular season goals this past season. 

A trio of local forwards finished with 20+ goal seasons. Tomas Yachmenev, the Voodoos all-time regular-season goal-scoring leader, finished with 30 goals along with 33 assists for 63 points, Ryan Mills netted 22 goals along with 26 assists for 48 points and graduating forward Joe Whittet finished with 23 goals and 16 assists for 29 points.   

Brett Shawana, known as one of the top two-way forwards in the NOJHL, finished with 13 goals and 17 assists totalling 30 points.  

Forward Mat Hardwick, who played a pair of affiliate games with the North Bay Battalion this season, finished with seven goals and 15 assists for 22 points in 39 games this season.  

The deep Voodoos blueline was guided by three local defenceman and a pair that made a significant impact on the potent Voodoos powerplay. 

Eric Mondoux had an impressive return to Powassan after playing a season with the Hamilton Kilty B's who were the affiliate team of the Hamilton Bulldogs. Mondoux finished with nine goals along with 30 assists for 39 points in 40 regular season contests. He finished tied for first in team power play assists with 16 along with three power play tallies of his own. 

Jacob Peterson-Galema, a 2018 U18 OHL Priority Selection first round pick of the North Bay Battalion, was named the NOJHL defenceman of the month for February.  The big defender finished his impressive year with seven goals along with 29 assists for 36 points.  

Then, just before Christmas, the Voodoos added physical defender Eric Allair in a trade. The Voodoos re-acquired the former Battalion defender from the Caledonia Corvairs of the GOJHL. The graduating defender had one goal and six assists for seven points in 11 games with the Voodoos in the second half. 

Voodoos hockey came full circle for both Allair and Whittet, as the two players actually dressed as affiliate players with the Voodoos in their inaugural 2014-15 season.  Both actually netted their first junior 'A' goals that season as affiliates.