After an unfortunate loss at the hands of the Milton Menace, Oakville needed to bounce back in their next set of games against the Brantford 99ers and the St. Michaels Buzzers.
Friday’s game was extra important to the Blades as it was their Teddy Bear Toss game to help support the Oakville Professional Firefighters association.
November 25, 2022: Brantford 99ers vs. Oakville Blades
Friday’s game against Brantford was a great game for the Blades to build off of.
The first period was utter dominance by the Oakville Blades as they out-chanced and out-shot the 99ers 14-5 at the end of the first period.
Brantford 99ers goalie Ben Bonisteel was having a very good first period as he stopped all 14 shots that he faced in the first period.
Gavin McCarthy was also perfect in the first period and the period ended with a score of 0-0.
Once the second period started, the Blades were able to get on the board quickly.
Jack Churchill broke into the offensive zone and dropped a pass back for Andrew Brown, Brown found Matthew Wang near the slot and Wang slid the puck through the legs of Ben Bonisteel to give the Blades the 1-0 lead and the Teddy Bears finally got tossed.
After a five-minute clean-up of the thrown Teddy Bears, the Blades went back onto the attack.
After a clearing attempt by the 99ers was stopped by Gleb Akimov, Akimov found Jacob Crisp in the slot and Crisp made no mistake making the score 2-0 Blades.
Near the end of the period, Brantford took a five-minute major penalty for a hit to the head and the Blades were given a five-minute powerplay.
But near the end of the powerplay, 99ers forward Anthony Drekopoulos broke in shorthanded and shot the puck high glove side popping the water bottle and cutting Oakville’s lead to 2-1 as the game went into the second intermission.
At the start of the third period, the Blades were pushing for another goal. Luke Modry fanned on a shot from the slot that found its way to Jacob Crisp.
Crisp shot the puck and the rebound came out to rookie Gianmarco Caringi and he scored getting his first career OJHL goal.
All Blades players jumped for joy seeing their teammate score his first career goal and all players mobbed him in the dressing room after the game.
Co-captain Andrew Brown immediately grabbed the puck for Caringi and hopefully, he frames the puck and holds onto it for many years.
Near the halfway point of the period, Andrew Brown took a shot from the point that was tipped in by Jake Alcaraz to give the Blades a 4-1 lead.
The Blades never looked back and won this game 4-1, a complete game from the team and a great effort.
Blades forward Jack Churchill spoke after the game about why the players were so excited for Caringi to score.
"Oh we love Gianmarco, we were waiting for him to get that, we love him."
November 27, 2022: Oakville Blades vs. St. Michael’s Buzzers
After a big win in last Friday's Teddy Bear toss game, the Blades travelled to the famous St. Michael’s College Hockey Arena in Toronto for a game against the St. Michael’s Buzzers.
The Buzzers are currently seventh in the South/East Conference with a respectable 10-12-2-4 record in 28 games.
This game was the first time the Blades and Buzzers had played each other since the 2019/20 season.
The game didn’t start great for the Blades as they allowed Nathan Bannister to score under five minutes into the game to put the Buzzers up 1-0 early.
But the Blades answered back very quickly as Matthew Wang scored just 19 seconds after the Buzzers' goal to tie the game 1-1.
Shortly after the Blades tied the game. They took the lead with another goal by Matthew Wang to give the Blades a 2-1 lead.
After taking a 2-1 lead the Blades played a solid period of hockey and ended the first frame with a 2-1 score.
Near the beginning of the second period, the Buzzers tied the game with a goal by Gabriel Flammia making the game 2-2.
But late in the period, the Blades bounced back with two quick goals a minute apart by Luke Johnston and Gleb Akimov to give Oakville a 4-2 lead as the second period came to an end.
In the third period, the Blades needed to shut down the Buzzers' offence and the team did a very good job for the first 15 minutes.
But in the last four minutes of the game, the Buzzers pulled the goalie for an extra attacker and also had a powerplay giving them a 6-on-4 advantage.
With the two-man advantage, Buzzers forward Giacomo Martino scored to cut Oakville’s lead to one goal.
Luckily Oakville was able to keep the puck out of the net and kill the clock and pick up another big win.
The Blades next game will be on the road against the Burlington Cougars this Friday, Dec. 2.