Skyhawks doubled by Wolves in home opener

Dustin McCrank looks for a third period rebound in front of Sudbury netminder Paul Pidutti. Photo by Chris Dawson.

The North Bay Skyhawks fell to 0-2 on the season, losing 4-2 in their season opener at the hands of their rivals, the Sudbury Northern Wolves.

Brian McGarry led the way for Sudbury with a pair of goals and an assist, while Skyhawk goals came from Dustin McCrank and newcomer Kyle Hope, both on the powerplay.

The Skyhawks didn’t bring the 2,577 fans to their feet many times on this night. Skyhawks head coach Kevin Kerr described it as a “Ho-Hum” game.

“I’m not happy, I don’t think Guy is happy, the players aren’t happy and nobody likes to lose,” Kerr said in a post game interview.

“But we’ll regroup here, we’ll rebound and I mean you can say it’s early, you can say it’s only two games but obviously we’ve got work to do in our own zone and we have work to do with battles, we lost a lot of one on one battles tonight, I don’t think we battled very hard.”

Kerr also noted his club only recorded 36 hits on the night, which in his opinion, is what the team should record in 30 minutes not in 60. He’s concerned about a lack of emotion and he says he’s not sure who really wants to play here.

“It’s hard for me to look down the bench and pick out guys to come out on the ice when I’m not sure who really wants to go,” Kerr said.

The Skyhawks fans who are used to seeing their team dominate the opposition instead are watching a club that will need to work for every goal and play what Kevin Kerr calls “Nuts and Bolts” hockey.

“I’ve said it from day one if we don’t outwork hockey teams we are not going to win and that’s all there is to it. We are not skilled enough to beat teams like Sudbury.”

The positives

Kerr did pull some positives out of the loss. He was impressed with the play of rookie goalie Ryan Douglas and newcomer defenceman Kyle Hope who scored the Skyhawks second goal on a beautiful one timer on the powerplay.

“He stood on his head a few times out there,” Kerr said about Douglas.
“I think Kyle Hope, considering he hadn’t played in over a week came in and played very well for us, other than that there wasn’t a lot of jam.”

Three Stars

The three stars of the game were:

1. Brian McGarry – Sudbury
2. Brett Venasse – North Bay
3. Brendan Biederman – Sudbury