In a east division in a mid – week match – up at McIntyre Arena in Timmins, the 6 – 1 Kirkland Lake Gold Miners hit the ice against the 5 – 4 – 1 Timmins Rock in Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League action on Wednesday October 7th.
31 seconds into the first period, Timmins Devin Panzeca sank the Rock’s first goal of the game to give the hosts a 1 – 0 lead with assists from Jordan Rendie and Andrew Castangna. Zachary Kercz scored Timmins second goal of the game behind Gold Miner goaltender Marc Audet on a Rock power play at 5:15 of the period with a pass from veteran Ryan Kerr.
Brandon Wolfe sunk his fifth of the 2015 – 2016 season with a goal behind Timmins netminder Logan Ferrington at 7:05 of the second period with a pair of assists from rookies Brayden Stortz and Maxime Choquette. At 12:13 of the third, Kyle Lewis gave the Rock a 3 – 1 lead with helpers coming from Michael Norris and Cole Gilligan.
At 15:44 of the third, the Rock’s Tristan Salesse gave Timmins a 4 – 1 lead on an unassisted goal. With 20 seconds left in the game and one a power play, Kirkland Lake’s Kyle Lamont’s first goal of the season brings the game within one but unfortunately wasn’t enough and drops the Gold Miners a 6 – 2 on the season.
“I believe every game is a learning curve and we simply need to start playing with more heart and competing along with having the will to win the difficult games. We need to keep focus and keep moving forward as we have many more tough games to come and improve everyday so that we can come more prepared and come out with the two points instead of a loss,” said Kirkland Lake’s Marc Audet.
The Gold Miners will head to Powassan on October 9th for a Friday evening NOJHL game against the Voodoos for a 7:30 p.m start.