Ice Dogs’ Stratford sees win of 300th game

Sports & Recreation — 29 November 2011

By Ally Dunham

Local athlete, Jared Stratford made the game winning goal in the Superior International Junior Hockey League (SIJHL) on Nov. 22 against the Sioux Lookout Flyers, helping the Dryden Ice Dogs win their 300th game in SIJHL?history.

Dryden took a 5-2 final victory over the Flyers, and moved on to the Thunder Bay North Stars for some weekend action.

“We’re starting to come together, I think we were not playing as a team in the beginning of the year, accountability was low, more of a one man team,” said Tom Kuhn. “We had a few meetings together as a team in the locker room, and we realized if we really want to win, go to the cup and go as far as we can, we really need to come together as a team and staying playing better with each other. I think we’ve definitely picked it up since we’ve gotten the new guys here.”

Opening the weekend matchup saw a 3-1 win over the North Stars on Fri., Nov. 25.

With Dean Shepherdson in net, 29 shots came his way. Thomas Greene, Ty Brueggeman and Jesse Linner all saw the back of the net in the third stanza, taking the game.

Moving on to Saturday night, the North Stars had their chance at payback, reversing the score 3-1 in favour of Thunder Bay.

The first stanza went by with no goals for either side, followed by a goal a piece for Thunder Bay, and the Ice Dogs, compliments of Linner in the second period.

Going into the third with a 1-1 tie, Thunder Bay managed to drop two in the net in the last few minutes of play.

“Some strengths of the team are the returning players, which gives us the experience. We do have kids coming back, but we’re still a young team which makes us inexperienced too,” said Kuhn. “We definitely don’t give up any goals at all, but we’re not at our capability of where we should be right now.”

“We are bringing in more players, as we’ve only been playing with 12 or 13 right now. Hopefully we’ll be bringing more players in with experience,” said Kuhn. “We have to start winning and get some points.”

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