The sledge team won gold in 2006 in Turin, Italy, and is looking to claim the top of the podium on home ice.

Forward Graeme Murray of Gravenhurst, Ontario, collides with the US player Andy Yohe. Canada’s national sledge hockey team is looking to repeat as gold medalists at the Vancouver Paralympics.

“You can feel it, the difference. Torino was awesome too, but it’s pretty special being in your own country,” said Elmira’s Jeff Snyder, the team’s head coach. “Everywhere we go in Vancouver, there are Canadian signs and you can really feel the people behind you.”

The team arrived in British Columbia Feb. 27 and went on the road to hold practices in different cities before moving into the Olympic village last Saturday. On Tuesday, they faced off against the Czech Republic in an exhibition game.

Team Canada will meet Italy, Sweden and Norway in the preliminary rounds. Filling out the Paralympic schedule are Japan, Korea and the U.S.

Norway and the U.S. are the teams to watch out for, Snyder said. Canada finished third behind the U.S. and Norway at the world championship this year.

Thirteen players on the 15-member squad were part of the gold-medal Paralympic team in 2006; defenceman Adam Dixon of Midland, Ontario and forward Derek Whitsun of Chatham, Ontario are the only newcomers.

They’ll be using that experience to their advantage, Snyder said; most of their players have been through the hype and excitement of the games before, so they’ll know what to expect.

The coach said the team isn’t feeling any extra pressure to win it all after Canada’s Olympic hockey success, noting that bringing home gold has been their goal all along.

“We came here to win gold. We’d love to complete the hat trick for Hockey Canada, but I don’t think [the pressure is any more than it was before.”

Sledge hockey made its Paralympic debut at the 1994 Lillehammer Games, and it has proven to be one of the most popular sports at the Games. Sledge hockey games featuring Canada and the gold medal game were the first events of the Vancouver Paralympics to sell out.

The sledge team was brought under the umbrella of Hockey Canada in 2005, and Hockey Canada has done a lot to promote the sport and build it at the grassroots level, Snyder said,
Canada’s sledge team also benefitted from Own the Podium, the $117-million dollar plan to see Canada win more medals than any other country at the Olympics. The sledge team received almost $2 million over the past five years, enabling the players to spend more time together at training camps and funding development of new equipment.

Snyder has coached the national sledge team for seven years, and he’s watched the sport grow in popularity and competitiveness over that time.

“I would say Canada, the United States and Norway are a little bit ahead, but that gap’s closing. Japan for sure has improved and the Czech Republic’s really improved fast.”

Before their first game Mar. 13, the sledge team will march into B.C. Place Stadium for the opening ceremony behind team captain Jean Labonté. Labonté was selected to be the flag bearer, the second consecutive time a sledge player has carried the flag for the opening ceremony of the Paralympics.

“They’re so small, but look at them skate!”

The team moved up to U16 this season, so many of their players are young to begin with. On top of that, the team’s roster includes two 12-year-olds and a pair of 13-year-olds.

The St. Clements U16 A ringette team is headed to the provincial championships in North Bay Mar. 18-21. From left are Maggie Wang, Megan Parsons, Julia Hildebrand, Kyla Fleming, Sydney Nosal, Shae-Lynn Reaman, Alex Hildebrand, Taylor Richardson, Tiffany Hane, Michelle Thompson, Laura Runstedler and Jessica McDonald.

Their coaches expected that this would be a development year, but against the odds, the plucky little team is ranked first in the western region and has picked up a handful of medals. They won gold at three tournaments – including the qualifying tournament for the provincial ‘A’ championships – and silver at a fourth.

Coach Terry Nosal explained that the core of the team has been playing together for four years and wanted to stick together, even though they were moving up an age division. That team chemistry has helped them compete with larger teams made up of older players.

“We’re not the most talented group out there, but they feed off each other and they get along well together.”

St. Clements is competitive in ringette out of all proportion to the size of the town. The local squad had a record of 18 wins and threelosses this season, in a division that includes London, Mississauga, Ottawa, Whitby and Oshawa. They head to North Bay ranked fifth in the province.

Of the 22 U16 A teams in the province, 10 advance to the provincials in North Bay later this month. Six of those teams earn a berth by winning a regional qualifying tournament, while the other four qualify for a wildcard slot.

This is the first year that St. Clements has qualified for provincials by winning the tournament; every other year, they’ve advanced on a wildcard spot. Last year they finished fourth, and the goal this year is to make it to the medal round and place either first or second.

It’s an ambitious goal for a team that ices only two lines. Nosal noted that they haven’t cut a player in five years, and often pick up players after larger centre have made their cuts.

“This team knows the meaning of teamwork,” Nosal said. “That is the only way they were able to do this.”

Kaitlin Doering and Emma Davidson were among the more than 450 hockey players, ages 13 and 14, who vied for the opportunity at one of six tryout camps last fall. The camps involved a series of on-land challenges, as well as practices and games which were all observed by judges who would make the final decision as to who to accept onto the prestigious teams.

Emma Davidson is heading to the Ontario Winter Games, where she'll be playing hockey on one of eight teams competing for gold.

Davidson, a Guelph Thunder player, and Doering, who skates for the Waterloo Ravens and the EDSS Lancers, will represent Woolwich on one of the Ontario tournament teams at the biannual event, which showcases the skills of amateur athletes between the ages of 10 and 22.

More than 3,500 athletes, coaches and officials will take part in the multi-sport event. Some 25 sports will be contested, including women’s hockey, which will showcase some of the best Bantam-age players in the province in an eight-team tournament format.

Davidson, a Grade 8 student at Park Manor Public School, said she is already experiencing some butterflies.
“I am pretty nervous about going. I think the girls will be really good, and there will probably be some tough competition, but I am looking forward to it.”

The winner at the Ontario games will move on to a national championship. For Davidson, who has played hockey since she was six years old, such competitions provide great thrills.

“The best moment for me in hockey was last year at the provincial game. I was playing for the Waterloo team and I scored one of the goals during the game,” she said. “Playing in the winter games will be huge for me too.”

The girls leave for Muskoka on Tuesday to participate in ‘hockey camp’ before the actual competition. Despite the current nervousness, Davidson thinks they’ll be fine once playing begins.
“When I get on the ice, it feels like home.”

The Jacks were playing out the remainder of the season after missing the playoffs.

On Feb. 12, Wellesley built up a 3-0 lead courtesy of a shorthanded goal by Justin Roeder in the first period and a pair at even strength from Rob Hinschberger and Rob Martin in the first half of the second.

Justin Roeder wheels in the corner during the Wellesley Applejacks’ game last Saturday. Roeder had a goal and an assist in the 4-3 loss.

Thamesford’s John Garbe scored a pair midway through the second frame to put the Trojans on the board before Pat Doyle and Matt Aspden scored a shorthanded goal each to reinforce the lead.

The Trojans came back with three goals late in the second, two of them on the power play, to even the score at five apiece.

Early in the third, Wellesley’s Geoff Parr picked up penalties for tripping and cross checking and a double minor for roughing all on one play. Thamesford capitalized with a pair of goals on the ensuing power play to take a 7-5 lead.

Aspden and Hinschberger each scored a second goal to even things at seven apiece, but Thamesford’s Darryl Karpel found the mesh for the game winner. With Wellesley chasing a tying goal, the Trojans put a pair in the empty net to make it 10-7.

“We shot ourselves in the foot Friday night,” said coach Kevin Fitzpatrick. “We had a 5-2 lead and proceeded to take a number of bad penalties. … It’s disappointing, and it reflects badly on the whole team.”

On Saturday, the Jacks hosted Burford for their final game of the season. Wellesley again drew first blood with a goal from Rob Martin a mere 19 seconds into the first period.

Burford answered back in just as swiftly, scoring 56 seconds in to give the teams one apiece. The Bulldogs moved in front with a goal from Dallas Boakes at 16:25 but it was another short-lived lead, as Roeder scored for the Jacks 33 seconds later.

Burford reclaimed the lead in the dying seconds of the first period, capitalizing on a defensive breakdown in Wellesley’s end to move in front 3-2.

The Bulldogs widened the lead six minutes into the second period, flicking the puck up and over keeper Luke Zehr. At 10:16, Mike Moggy fed the puck to Read Shantz, who found Eric Parr with a pass. Parr put the rubber away for a clean power play goal, bringing the Jacks within one. And that was where the score stayed for the rest of the game, as neither team was able to beat the opposing keeper.

Fitzpatrick was disappointed with the way the season ended, noting it’s the first year in his time coaching the Jacks that the team hasn’t made the playoffs.

The Jacks have fallen on hard times in the past few years; the team exited the playoffs in the first round the past three seasons. Last year, they were guaranteed a playoff spot in the four-team Bauer conference; with the addition of Port Stanley this year, they needed to edge out another team and couldn’t.

However, Fitzpatrick contended that the team’s 7-23-6 record doesn’t fully describe a season that was plagued with freak injuries and bouts of the flu, where it seemed the team couldn’t catch a break.

“Our record doesn’t indicate the way we’ve played all year,” he said. “They could have used a lot of things as crutches and excuses and they didn’t.”

There were also some positives to come out of this season, including a re-energized executive, affiliation with the Elmira Sugar Kings, and interest from prospective players.

“One thing we didn’t have last year – I’ve got kids calling, good kids that want to come here and play,” Fitzpatrick said. “We’ll just keep plugging away. Although we’re disappointed this season ended, it’s pretty exciting thinking about what we’ve got going on for next year already.”

The Kings climbed back into the game after going down 8-1, but weren’t able to draw even and the game ended 9-5 in favour of the Cambridge Winter Hawks.

Elmira’s Zach Salomon stickhandles past Cambridge defender Kory Mortimer in the second period of last Sunday’s game. The period was a high-scoring one, with Cambridge notching five goals and Elmira firing three in quick succession.

“It was one of those games where it seemed like a lot of strange things happened,” said head coach Geoff Haddaway. “It just seemed like at times it was spiraling out of control for both teams.”

The Kings collected a mittful of major and double minor penalties and spent a large part of the game trying to kill them off. Six minutes into the first period, Shane Smith sent an attacker sprawling with a big hit and was handed a five-minute major for kneeing. The penalty was a costly one: Nathan Ableson scored for Cambridge with the man advantage and Brett Priestap added a second goal just as the power play ended.

A minute later, the Winter Hawks were up 3-0 courtesy of a goal from Matt Sones. At that point Haddaway called for a timeout, hoping to get his team back on track. The Kings were rewarded at 16:31, when Andrew Smith capitalized on the power play on a feed from Tyson LeBlanc.

“I thought we bounced back,” Haddaway said. “By the end of the period, we scored the later goal and made it 3-1 and I think our guys generally felt pretty good. Yeah, we were down 3-1, but if we could gather ourselves and play on our terms, we still had a chance.”

The second period, however, got off to a disastrous start for the home side, as the Winter Hawks scored five times in six minutes. Sones went top shelf to notch the first one just 26 seconds in, and the Kings pulled netminder Nick Horrigan.

His replacement, Brandon Gorecki, had no better fortune: at 1:10, the Winter Hawks pounced on a fumbled clear and Tanner Rutland scored their fifth goal. A minute later, Ryan Clarke made it 6-1 for Cambridge.

At the five-minute mark, Seth Horricks was handed a double minor for a high stick that caught a Cambridge player in the mouth. Sones scored another pair on the ensuing power play, putting the Winter Hawks up 8-1.

“We just couldn’t stop the bleeding, no matter what we tried,” Haddaway said. “We’d already called our time out in the first and we changed our goalies, but it didn’t seem to work, unfortunately.”

The momentum finally shifted in the second half of the period, and the Kings demonstrated that Cambridge wasn’t the only team that could rack up points in quick succession.

Elmira gave the home fans something to cheer about at 10:02, when Michael Therrien scored a power play goal with helpers from Andrew Smith and Jake Jefferies.

A minute and half later, Riley Sonnenburg stickhandled into the offensive zone, rounded the net and passed the puck to Brennon Pearce at the point. Pearce let a slapshot rip and Kody Ellis neatly deflected it into the back of the net.

At 12:42, LeBlanc went to the net and dropped a pass back to Sonnenburg, who went top shelf to make it 8-4.

“For us to go down 8-1 in our barn and claw our way back … the guys on the bench, it was their determination, their resolve. Their pride came through in that they didn’t want to get embarrassed,” Haddaway said.

The Kings picked up another high sticking double minor late in the second, and the power play carried over into the third period. They had just 10 seconds to go on the penalty kill when Cambridge found the mesh once more to make the score 9-4.

The Kings answered back less than a minute later. Therrien fired a shot on goal and the rebound went straight to Josh Woolley, who buried it. A comeback seemed not impossible, but the Kings couldn’t muster another goal before the clock ran out.

Although disappointed with the loss, Haddaway couldn’t find too much fault with the way his team played, noting that the double minor penalties were for accidental infractions, and the team was victim of some unlucky bounces.

“It’s just one of those games where it seemed like a lot of things that could go wrong did go wrong and we paid the price.”

The coach was more upset about the road game Feb. 5, when the team lost 5-1 to Stratford.

“Sunday, I thought there was a higher compete level and our guys fought to the end, whereas Friday, we threw a stinker on the board.”

After a scoreless first period, the Kings watched the Cullitons go ahead by two in the second. Ellis (Jarred Parent) scored the Kings’ lone marker early in the third, only to have Stratford power in three unanswered goals to take the win.

Last weekend’s results were especially disappointing in that the Kings hoped to pick up some points and possibly move up the standings. They’re currently tied with Stratford with 43 points, and would face Cambridge if the playoffs were starting today.

Haddaway said he isn’t concerned about the team’s ability to bounce back from the losses.

“I think it falls on the guys and the leadership in the room … it’s their room, it’s their team. I think those guys – [Jeff] Zippel, [Jon] Jutzi, Therrien and Shane Smith – they believe and we believe that they’re capable of doing that.”

The Kings host Guelph tomorrow (Sunday) at 7 p.m., then head to Kitchener on Tuesday.

Harnock was named to the national team after a four-day selection camp in Vancouver. Joining her will be Elmira’s Sheila Forler Bauman as the team’s physiotherapist.

Elmira’s Katie Harnock competing in the 2008 Paralympic Games in Beijing. Harnock will help the women’s national team defend their world championship title in Birmingham, England in July.

Harnock, 26, won gold with the national team in 2006 and was part of the squad that finished fifth at the Paralympics in Beijing. Forler Bauman travelled with the team to the Paralympics, but this is her first trip to the worlds, which are held every four years.

Forler Bauman noted that there was a steep learning curve when she first started working with wheelchair basketball players.

“I had covered a number of sports in the past as a physio, but the disability sports are interesting and challenging in a different way.”

Several members of the team have spinal cord injuries involving the thoracic spine, which means they don’t sweat normally. The support staff has to use other methods, such as ice vests, to cool them off. There is also the ergonomic aspect of wheeling and playing, and trying to reduce injuries and maximize efficiency.

Forler Bauman also does a lot of problem solving between competitions, helping the players find medical practitioners and giving advice on how to treat injuries and take medications without running afoul of doping rules.
When the team isn’t training, the players are spread across the country: four hail from British Columbia, two from Alberta, three from Quebec, two from Ontario and one from Saskatchewan. The team often holds camps in Alabama because four of the women are studying on wheelchair basketball scholarships there. Harnock is one of them, playing for the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.

Wheelchair basketball is a fast and exciting sport that people often aren’t aware of because it doesn’t get a lot of television coverage, Forler Bauman said. It takes a long time to learn the skills and strategy involved, with the result that the players on the women’s team range in age from 21 to 49.

Wheelchair basketball athletes are classified between 1.0 and 4.5, based on how much trunk balance and trunk rotation they have. Those at the upper ranges of mobility, class 4 and 4.5, can walk but have some disability that prevents them from playing on their feet. At the other end of the spectrum, class 1 players are often strapped in above the waist and have minimal balance and trunk rotation.

Teams are allowed to have a total of 14 points on the floor. Players with higher classification numbers tend to be shooters, while those with lower numbers are typically defenders.

The Canadian women’s team has won the world title four of five times since the women’s championship started in 1990. The team’s first challenge on the way to contending for a fifth title will be the Osaka Cup in Japan Feb. 16-21.

“It’ll be a busy year leading up to that, but the group seems to be very focused on what they want to do,” Forler Bauman said. “I thoroughly enjoy the sport, and I work with a great group of athletes.”

Norm Green

Joining Green, who has curled for more than 15 years, are lead Jim Stephens, second Carrie Speers and vice Len Cooper.

Stephens is a B1 classification, someone with no vision. Each team must have a B1, a B2, who has less than five per cent vision, and a B3, who has five to 10 per cent vision.

Green, who is totally blind in one eye and has four per cent vision the other, is considered a B2 after he lost his vision in 1992 when he fell 18 feet onto his head from a catwalk at work. He can see enough to sweep, but when curling he can’t see the rock past the second hog line.

Green was actively involved in sports his whole life, acting as a referee for many years before losing his vision.

“My whole life changed after the accident.”

Now after reaching the provincial level of competition, the team is facing another hurdle, the national championships which they have attended twice before. Green and his crew at the K-W Granite Club curl against sighted people on Sunday afternoons and have competed in the provincial championships several times.  Two years ago they travelled to Ottawa for the first time, but lost in the semi-final round after defeating the eventual winners, Team British Columbia, in round-robin play. Last year they came away with a silver medal, and this year the team is hoping for their big win.

“We have worked our way up, so I hope we can get to the top of the ladder now,” said Green.

Granite members Wendy Simpson and Ralph Fritz will be going to Ottawa as the coach and guide respectively. The team can have one sighted person to act as a guide. The guide describes the shot to the curler and ensures they’re lined up correctly in the hack, but they aren’t allowed to sweep, call the line, or touch the curler once they’ve started to deliver the rock.

“The guide is able to give us a bit of guidance, she helps us differently based on our level of sight,” Green explained. “For the completely blind they will say ‘Come to my voice. A little to the right … I like it.’”

Green’s wife, Carol, will be accompanying the team to Ottawa – she almost never misses one of his matches, said Green.

“It’s amazing to see the blind curlers,” she said. “It’s amazing what they can do. Anybody with a disability needs something to do, they can’t just sit at home and this has been great.”

“NBA players don’t manage this,” remarked McLennan’s mother Paula Raymond, “We are incredibly proud of him and his school for their success.”

Aidan McLennan of Conestogo PS went 15-for-15 Jan. 17 to claim the crown at the Knights of Columbus free throw competition.

Some 560 students from Conestogo, St. Jacobs, Park Manor Senior, Wellesley, and Riverside public schools and St. Teresa School took part in the competition at Elmira’s Park Manor. Each participant got 15 tries to sink as many baskets as possible.

The first and second-place winners at the council level – the Fr. Hugh McKinnon Council, in this case – were presented with gold and silver medallions. All winners have been invited to represent Council 8192 at the district level competition to be held Jan. 30 at St. David Catholic Secondary School in Waterloo.

Elmira forward Andrew Smith skates hard in the team’s match against Stratford Sunday. The Kings were triumphant, handing the Cullitons a 5-4 loss.

Saturday’s game in Cambridge saw the host team find the net first on a goal by Tyler Luikkonen halfway into the second period, with Elmira’s Josh Woolley – assisted by Lukas Baleshta – close on his heels with one of his own. The Winter Hawks regained the lead before the period was out, however, as Luikkonen potted his second.

Early in the third period Tyson LeBlanc, with help from Baleshta and Riley Sonnenburg, tied things up at 2-2, at which point the game really got interesting for the fans in the stands. At 19:26, Elmira’s Jon Jutzi (Sonnenburg) scored what would prove to be the clinching goal on the power play, but Cambridge was later awarded a penalty shot, adding to the tension in the dying seconds of the game.

“It was pretty exciting; scoring with 40 seconds to go,” said Elmira coach Geoff Haddaway. “One of Cambridge’s best players got to take a penalty shot with 1.3 seconds left and Nick [Horrigan] stopped him in his tracks. It was great.”

And their momentum carried over strongly to their game at home the following day against Stratford, eliciting big cheers from the fans at the crowded Woolwich Memorial Centre.

Jarred Parent (Shane Smith) started the first period off right for the Kings with a clean goal just five minutes in, but the Cullitons pulled up their socks and retaliated with a power play goal by Craig Dalrymple just minutes later. Following in his teammate’s footsteps, Brad McClure made it 2-1 for the visitors before the end of the first.

“We struggled for the rest of that period. We tried to do a lot of individual things rather than working together,” noted Haddaway.

But the coach must have delivered the right message to his charges during the intermission because the Kings came onto the ice ready to play. Their efforts showed up on the scoreboard.

Only two minutes into the period, LeBlanc buried the rubber to tie up the game with help from Sonnenburg and Ryan Johnston, which seemed to set off a chain reaction for the team. Although Stratford outshot the Kings, netminder Brandon Gorecki was able to fend off the attack, giving Sonnenburg the chance to turn the puck around and score another goal on the power play, with assists from LeBlanc and Baleshta.

Next up was Baleshta netting a goal of his own (Sonnenburg, LeBlanc) bringing the score to 4-2 for the Kings at the end of the second frame.
As the third go underway, the crowd was revved up and ready to let out a cheer when LeBlanc scored for the second time that night (Baleshta, Sonnenburg) on the power play, giving Elmira a strong lead, but perhaps a bit too much confidence.
“I wondered if we thought Stratford would just roll over and die,” said Haddaway. “They are certainly a good team so they are not just going to give up: there was too much time still left on the clock. We allowed them back in the game at that point.”
Stratford fought back hard and their efforts paid off when Brad McClure netted one, followed by another quick point for the Cullitons by Steve McParland on the power play. In the third frame, Stratford outplayed Elmira, tallying 11 shots to Elmira’s four and applying tremendous pressure in the final 10 minutes. Their efforts were rewarded, but it was not enough to tie up the game, leaving them one goal behind at the final buzzer.

“Once we got to 5-4 I think we did a really good job shutting them down,” said Haddaway. “When you have an opponent down three goals at home, you want to make sure they stay down, so hopefully we learned a lesson there when they started to catch up.”

The Kings take three consecutive wins into this weekend’s match-ups against Guelph and Kitchener.

“I know we were on a losing streak but I thought we were playing quite well. It was just a matter of being a little bit more consistent within those 60 minutes,” said Haddaway of the pre-Christmas stretch. “It’s nice for the guys to get rewarded for their hard work.”

The Kings are home tomorrow night (Sunday) to face the Kitchener Dutchmen.  Game time is 7 p.m.

The Kings showed no mercy to a shorthanded Listowel squad, scoring a trio of power play goals, a shorthanded goal and four more at even strength to win the game.

Elmira’s Lukas Baleshta advances on Listowel defender Kyle Goss in the first period of play last Sunday. Baleshta, a native of West Montrose, had an assist as the Sugar Kings downed the Cyclones 8-2.

“Someone said to me, ‘do you feel bad?’” head coach Geoff Haddaway recounted. “I said I don’t feel bad for them; we’ve been short bodies all season long. You can’t look at it that way, but you certainly have to seize that opportunity and I thought our guys did a really good job of that.”

Jarred Parent scored first for the Kings, firing in a rebound on a shot from Jake Jefferies and Michael Therrien. Josh Woolley made it a 2-0 lead at 12:44, picking up a feed from Parent and Spencer MacCormack in the slot, wheeling and shooting it past keeper Brock Hansell.

In the second frame, Zach Salomon (Kody Ellis, Lukas Baleshta) built up the Kings’ lead further, neatly deking Hansell for a shorthanded goal and making the score 3-0.

The Cyclones made a move onto the scoreboard midway through the second with a power play goal from Dawson Smith.

The Kings’ power play kicked into gear at 13:29 when Brad Kraus and Andrew Smith crossed the puck to Jake Jefferies, who ripped a slapshot straight into the back of the net. With 40 seconds left in the second, Smith (Brennon Pearce, Jon Jutzi) notched a power play goal of his own, going top shelf on a rebound from Hansell.

Listowel opened the third period with a second power play goal from Dan Mohle, making the score 5-2. The rest of the game was about the Kings, who added three more in the final frame.

Tyson LeBlanc, from Jutzi and Therrien, converted with a third power play goal just eight seconds after the Listowel player headed to the box. At 9:50, Salomon picked up a feed from MacCormack, fired a shot over a sliding defender and Parent knocked the rebound in for his second of the game. With four minutes remaining, Therrien (Parent, Woolley) fired a shot that Hansell got a piece of but not enough and it trickled into the net.

In net for the Kings, Nick Horrigan stopped 35 shots.

Haddaway was pleased to see the Kings go three for six on the power play, an area that has been a bit of an Achille’s heel this season.

“Right before the break, we were starting to show some signs of power play life. We’ve given some ice time to guys who weren’t getting much power play time and they’ve come up with some great efforts. You’re not always necessarily going to score, but if you have strong puck pursuit and you’re creating good scoring chances, eventually that’s going to pay off.”

The win followed a 7-4 loss to Cambridge on Jan. 2, where the Kings saw a two-goal lead slip through their fingers.

Parent scored early in the first period and Riley Sonnenburg added another 6:25 in the second to give Elmira the lead. Matt Amadio put Cambridge on the board before Therrien restored the Kings’ lead to two.

But the Winter Hawks added three more in the second period – one from Mike Sones and a pair from Matt Reis – to take a 4-3 lead. Sones added another five minutes into the third to widen the margin.

Brad Kraus brought Elmira within one with a power play goal at 12:39, only to see Cambridge notch an unassisted goal and finally an empty net goal to win 7-4.

“We played a pretty good game, we just couldn’t come up with that killer instinct to put a team away,” Haddaway said. “We’ve got to realize those are situations where we’ve got to put our foot down and keep it down.”

Through a scheduling quirk, the Kings return to Cambridge Saturday (today) for a rematch against the Winter Hawks. It’s unusual to play the same team on the road a week apart, but Haddaway said it’s a good test for the Kings.

“Hopefully we can go in there Saturday to be a little hungrier and get an opportunity to show some killer instinct.”

The Kings return home Sunday to face the Stratford Cullitons, the team currently two points ahead of Elmira in the standings. The puck drops Sunday at 2 p.m.