On July 24, the Ontario Junior Lacrosse League started their 2021 regular season at the Toronto Rock Athletic Center here in Oakville.
The day started with an amazing ceremony that saw all team members surrounding the arena, and the ceremonial faceoff was dropped by OJLL commissioner Mark Grimes and famous Raptors Superfan Nav Bhatia.
The Oakville Buzz was one of the 11 teams playing in this regular season and started their season off with a match against the Brampton Excelsiors.
The game began at a quick pace, with both teams ready and eager to make an impact in their first game in nearly two years.
After 10 minutes of scoreless play, the Brampton Excelsiors broke through with a goal by Mackenzie Burton with 4:04 left to go in the first.
The Buzz would then end up taking a penalty late in the first period, capitalized on by Brampton giving them a 2-0 lead, and that is how the first period ended.
The bad news kept coming for Oakville, as their Captain and leader Phil Mazzuca left the game with a broken jaw.
This was the second time Mazzuca broke his jaw, only this time on the opposite side.
The buzz knew that they needed to step it up, and they started the period strong with a goal by veteran Marley Angus.
Brampton would end up getting a goal back after Oakville cut the lead in half, giving them a 3-1 lead.
The Buzz wouldn’t let that kill their spirits, as Kyle Kennery scored on a delayed penalty to bring the buzz within a goal.
Henry Follows would then tie up the game for the Buzz at 3 goals apiece, ending the second period with a 3-3 tie.
The third period saw a very even and tight game for the first five minutes. With both teams playing very aggressively and tempers flaring on both sides, the Buzz would end up taking a penalty with around 6:30 left to go in the game.
Brampton would score a goal on the power play with 6:24 left to go in the game to give them a 4-3 lead.
The Buzz would then get hemmed in their zone with 5:40 left in the game, allowing a fifth goal giving the Excelsiors a 5-3 lead with 5:36 left in the game.
With the Buzz looking for a fourth goal, they played aggressively which came back to haunt them as they found themselves taking two penalties and being on a 5 on 3 penalty kill.
The Excelsiors would score on the 5 on 3 power play giving them a 6-3 lead, which would end up being the game’s final score.
After the game, I spoke with goal scorer Marley Angus about how it felt to be back on the field. “It was great. It’s been almost two years, so all of the guys were just itching to get back out. Not the result we wanted, but I think for the first game, we're starting to move in the right direction. I think our young age showed a bit, and that’s on us older guys,” he said.
I asked Angus how the team will keep their penalties down in the next game after taking so many towards the end. “I think we just have to stay more disciplined all over the floor. We were 3-3 going into the third and had them right where we wanted them. With all the momentum swinging towards our side and a couple of bad penalties lead us in the wrong direction, and ever since that, we entered into a downward slope,” he answered.
The Buzz played their next game later on that day against the Six Nations Arrows, who earlier that day tied the Burlington Cheifs 9-9.
The Buzz made a big change for this game, putting Sam Haines in as goaltender instead of Aden Walsh, who played against Brampton.
Oakville looked to play a much more disciplined game and not take as many penalties, and if they did, they would want to kill those penalties.
The Buzz opened the game by taking a penalty and surrendering the game’s first goal on the penalty kill in the first minute of the game.
Definitely not how Oakville planned to start the game, but the Buzz would come back with a goal of their own by Kyle Kennery just two minutes later. His goal tied the game at one.
Oakville would then take a 2-1 lead with a goal by Brian Jackman off of a beautiful pass by Kennery.
Eric McDonald would then extend the Buzz lead by scoring his first of the season and giving the team a 3-1 lead.
The Buzz wouldn’t look back after taking an early lead which grew to 11-1.
The big story on the offensive side was a hat-trick scored by rookie Brian Jackson.
The game would end as an 11-3 win for the Buzz, but the player of the game for me was goaltender Sam Haines. Haines had to come up big on many occasions in the first period and early in the second.
I spoke to Sam after the game about how he was able to bounce back after giving up an early goal. “You have to get the jitters out, just think ‘that was it, that was their one freebie’ and zone in after that,” replied Haines.
I then spoke to Coach Joe Johnson after the game about how the team was able to bounce back after the early loss, and he said, “We played three full periods, we learned a bit from this morning and made some adjustments and were able to play a complete three-period game.”
The Buzz then looked to their games on Sunday and would start the day by playing the Burlington Cheifs.
Burlington would jump out to an early 1-0 after the first period.
The second period put Oakville in a tough position as they trailed 5-0.
Chris Weier would get Oakville on the board to make it 5-1, but it seemed too little too late as Burlington ended up taking the game 7-2.
Oakville would play its last game of the weekend against the St. Catharines A’s in hopes to leave the weekend with a 2-2 record.
The first period was a complete goalie battle with Oakville’s Sam Haines and St. Catherines Cam MacLeod standing strong and keeping the game scoreless at the end of the first period.
The second period saw a lot of scoring, and Oakville's Jonathan Galiardi scored the first goal.
Shortly after going up 1-0, the Buzz would concede a goal bringing the score back even at 1.
Oakville would get the lead back with a blazing shot by Zack Kearney, making it a 2-1 game.
Oakville would go up 3-1 after an end-to-end goal by Curtis Goddard.
Oakville would then let in another goal cutting their lead to one as the second period ends 3-2.
Oakville and St. Catharines would play a very tight game in the first five minutes of the third period and didn’t give each other much room on the field.
The Buzz would extend their lead with a hard-working goal by Curtis Goddard. He stripped the ball from a defender and scored on Cam MacLeod.
Oakville would take a penalty late in the game and let in a goal cutting their lead to one again.
Oakville wouldn’t let that goal deflate their spirits as Marley Angus would score a goal to give the Buzz a 5-3 lead, and Chris Weier would score an empty netter to seal the game for Oakville, giving them a 6-3 win.
I spoke to game-winning goal scorer Curtis Goddard about how they were able to bounce back after a bad loss earlier, and he said, “I think we realized in this game that we were the better team, so we were able to regroup and get our heads together and win this game.”
I also spoke with Toronto Rock Owner Jamie Dawick about the entire weekend and how he felt about its success, and he said, “It’s great to see live lacrosse again as it gives us some sort of normality. We haven’t seen these people in 18 months, but now they are here. It was awesome.”
The Buzz is back at it next week with their final four games of the regular season, and those games will determine whether or not they compete for the Iroquois trophy. You can watch them live on youtube.