The second weekend of the NOJHL season has passed and the Powassan Voodoos swept their northern road trip through Cochrane, Hearst, and Timmins.
“That was the first time we have done that since I have been here,” Head coach Max Gavin said. “I know in the past they had done it, but it was big for our group, especially that last one in Timmins. It’s always a grind. It’s basically two games in under 24 hours and it’s a lot on the players. I have to commend the guys, they worked hard and earned all those points.”
Again, that northern trip is always a tough one on teams since it boasts the last two NOJHL champions in the Hearst Lumberjacks (2018/19) and Cochrane Crunch (2017/2018). That is by no means selling Timmins short as a sold-out McIntyre Arena can be intimidating on any team, and all three offer a learning experience.
“Ryan Leonard (Cochrane), Marc Lafleur (Hearst), and Corey Beer (Timmins), are all great coaches and those are three of the guys that I set the bar against as a coach as to where I am at and what I am doing. To be honest, I take things from them, and I’m sure they do the same. I learn at a coaching school called RND, ‘Rob and Deploy,’ from other coaches. They’re all solid teams and I know those guys will be getting their teams 100 percent better come January and it is up to us to keep matching them.”
Such improvement might be a tad bit scary to think of since Powassan held a 4-1 lead over Timmins heading into the third before Timmins came back to tie it at 4. In overtime, Greg Trudeau-Paquet scored to give the Voodoos the victory and the sweep.
“Our goaltender was playing so well but Timmins is such a strong and well-coached team and they are always ready to go and a threat to come back. Not to say that I expected it, I thought we were in a good position and believed in our guys that we were going to get it done but when you can learn lessons early and still get points, that is big,” Gavin said.
Last week when we caught up with the coach, he mentioned that he was more worried about results of team play over victories at this point of the season, but after taking the three games, the Voodoos sit at a nice 5-1 record and while it is early, sit on top of the East Division with 10 points.
According to Gavin, even though the wins are there, results are coming.
“We have really emphasized our forecheck, our neutral zone and D zone right now. I think right now our fore-check is looking strong, our neutral zone is looking solid and our D zone needs some work. I think that comes along with chemistry and we have a young D core right now so I just think it takes time and so far so good, you have to be happy when you are getting the results that we are.”
Another benefit to the early trip is it gave the team time to bond on the road over the three days, which Gavin explained as beneficial to everyone.
“We just did a quick sit down bonding. It’s funny because these guys spend a lot of time together but some of them don’t ever dig deep and get to know somebody. It was fun to go around the circle and hearing all the fun facts about them. It was a really cool experience and it was huge for our team.”
One player who left during the offseason was Tomas Yachmenev, but after playing a game with the Navan Grads in the Central Canada Hockey League, the Voodoos re-acquired the speedy forward. Over the weekend, “Yach” picked up three points in his return in green.
“When you come back, I think you have a little bit of fire in you and he wants to prove people wrong that he belonged. I think we just got a motivated player back and he gelled really well with his lines and I think it is good coming back for a three in three because he got to spend time with all the new guys.”
Over the two weeks of NOJHL play, the Voodoos have had two weekly stars. Owen Say was a star the first week, and Gabby Kioki earned the honour over this past weekend.
“You can see the elevation in his game over the year. You have to give a lot of credit to him, he worked hard over the summer and I think it is a credit to him.” Gavin added.
This weekend will show a bit of a lighter workload for Powassan as they welcome Cochrane to the Sportsplex Saturday evening at 7:00pm, but Gavin thinks they will see a different team this weekend than the one they defeated 4-0 last Friday.
“Once you play somebody, you learn what they do. I am sure they will be prepped for what we do, but we are just going to keep focusing on our habits so when things tighten up later on, we can adjust to what other teams do.”
