Eagles win Two to Open the Season

Article by I. Schoonderbeek/Media by C. Arche

The Clarington Eagles started the 2024-25 PJHL season on the right note, racking up consecutive home victories over the Little Britain Merchants and the Caledon Golden Hawks.

In their home opener on September 12, the Eagles wasted little time jumping to the lead on an early powerplay marker from Mitch Davies. They would go on to coast to a 6-1 victory.

Newcomer Nate Burelle led the Clarington offence with two goals and an assist. Davies scored twice and looked like the best skater on the ice. Regular defenseman Kyle Shepherd looked right at home, filling in as a winger with Brock Mathieson and Jack Davis out of the lineup due to injury and chipped in on offense with a goal. And Brayden Hicks netted his first of the season.

Braeden Derks stopped 18 of 19 shots to earn the victory in goal.

Clarington’s bright spot was the powerplay, which struggled last season. The Eagles scored on four of seven opportunities with the man advantage while killing all seven Little Britain powerplays.

The game marked fourth-year Eagle Nolan Matheson’s first as team captain. “It means a lot,” said Matheson when asked for his reaction to being named. “It means a lot because my uncle played, so it kind of runs in the family. We’ve got a good leadership group with Mitch Davies, (Trevor) Urquhart, and Charlie (Vanhaverbeke). I think we’re going to have a good team. We lost some great guys, which sucks. But the coaches did an awesome job reloading. We should have a real good chance to win again.”

Coach Dean Baumhauer didn’t place too much significance on the performance after the game. As any top team should, the bench boss was pinpointing areas for improvement after the contest. “It’s game one. A win is a win,” said Dean. “Clearly, we were better than they were. But we have some work to do in the faceoff circle, and discipline was an issue. We took two goaltender interference penalties and some offensive zone penalties which just weren’t necessary. It’s up to me to hold them accountable for selfish and undisciplined play.”

And hold them accountable, he did… the Eagles staff skated their troops long and hard at practice Sunday afternoon to drive the message home. “Ya, we had a little skate there on Sunday,” said assistant captain Trevor Urquhart with a chuckle when asked about the coach’s response to seeing his club take four penalties and get outshot in the third period of the opener. “It was good, though,” Urquhart continued. “We probably deserved it, and we learned some lessons. It’s not fun, but it’ll keep us in shape, and we’ll be better for it.”

Game two of the season gave Eagles fans their first look at one of the two new additions to the Orr Division when the Caledon Golden Hawks visited Rickard Arena Thursday night.

Caledon got on the scoreboard first, converting an intercepted breakout pass past Eagles starter Jairus Ford. But from that point on it was all Clarington. The Eagles would respond with six goals of their own in the first period en route to an eventual 10-3 victory.

Urquhart, held scoreless in the season opener a week earlier, led the Clarington offence with five assists and seemed to be buzzing around the offensive zone all night. Brayden Hicks had four helpers, and Will Gourgouvelis scored two goals along with two assists. Ben Stycuk, Kyle Smith and Adam Klaas each scored two goals, and Kayden Hambly and Cooper Kellar added singles.

“Obviously, tonight was a bit of a mismatch,” said Baumhauer. “That’s going to happen when you’re a top team. We need our guys approaching games like this as preparation for the playoffs and making sure we’re building good habits. Most of our guys played well, but a few looked a little disinterested. I thought Ford played well in net. It’s tough to play when you don’t get a lot of work. He made some saves when we needed him, and a couple of the goals resulted from pure sloppiness in our play. Saturday will be a better game on the road.”

The Eagles travel to Uxbridge Saturday night to play in the Bruins 2024-25 home opener.

The Eagles will be back home on Thursday, September 26, when they host the other new addition to the Orr Division, the Schomberg Cougars. The puck drop is at 7:25, as usual.