Photo by Jake Arts
Article by Dylan Baker
The Komoka Kings continued their opening month of the 2024-2025 season this weekend, with a pair of games against new conference opponents, matching up with the Stratford Warriors for the second time in six days, and hosting the Elmira Sugar Kings for the first time.
In Stratford, the Kings played their first regular season game at the William Allman Memorial Arena in over a decade. The Kings fell behind early, when Jacob Wiseman scored for Stratford at the 3-minute mark. About 10 minutes later, Wiseman received a pass at the blue line and scored another to give Stratford a 2-0 lead. Five minutes later, the Kings chipped away and got one back, as Seth Huygen stole a puck at the Stratford blueline and broke in on a 2-on-1, feeding Jagan Chanderdat who wristed a shot past Aidan Hill, making it a 2-1 game. The Kings then got a power play with 48 seconds left in the period, and in his first GOJHL game, 16-year old defenceman, Nathan Gaitens scored his first junior goal with 1.2 seconds on the clock, assisted by Kade McGeen and Jagan Chanderdat.
The second proved uneventful, the Kings had just three credited shots, while Stratford had 13, and neither team scored a goal. The third period was more of the same, until the final minute. After Komoka iced the puck, the Stratford Warriors won an offensive zone draw, and Colin Slattery tipped a Drew Hodge shot to give Stratford the lead with 17 seconds remaining in the game, and they held on to win. Nate Gillis got the start, and stopped 25 out of 28 shots in the defeat.
On Saturday, the Kings hosted the Elmira Sugar Kings for the first time this season. Elmira opened the scoring early, at the 3:03 mark, on a nice goal from Luke Della Croce. Ten minutes later, the Kings responded on a beautiful display of passing by Nash Coffin, Everett Force, and Kade McGeen, which ended on the stick of Coffin who scored his second of the year to tie things up. Elmira got the lead back just three minutes later, when Isaac Lorentz found the back of the night immediately after a power play.
In the second, it was the story of special teams. Elmira extended their lead three minutes in, when Ian Speiran scored a power play goal to make it 3-1. Komoka got a power play not long after that, and Alex Akena fired a shot that looked to many as though it went in, but the officials ruled no goal. Elmira then added another 15 minutes into the period, on the power play again, to make it 4-1 Sugar Kings. Just under three minutes later, the Kings had a four-minute power play, on which Nathan Gaitens found Seth Huygen with a seam pass that Huygen deflected home to make it 4-2. Then, with ten seconds left in the period and Komoka still on the man advantage, goaltender Ryan Burroughs found Justin Skirten in the neutral zone with a saucer pass, which Skirten drove to the net himself and buried past the Elmira netminder to make it a one goal game after two.
In the third, the Kings couldn’t capitalize on some early power plays, and Luke Della Croce scored his third goal of the game (second on the power play) to make it 5-3 Sugar Kings. Elmira would add one more into the empty net and the Kings fell by a score of 6-3. Ryan Burroughs stopped 40 out of 45 shots that he had to face in the loss.
The team is back in action on Saturday, as they host the London Nationals at the Wellness Centre, before heading to Waterloo on Sunday to face the KW Siskins. Puck drops at 7:15pm on Saturday night in Komoka!
Top Statistical Performers from the weekend:
Kade McGeen – 2 GP, 0-3-3 (on an active 2 game point streak)
Seth Huygen – 2 GP, 1-1-2 (on an active 3 game point streak)
Jagan Chanderdat – 2 GP, 1-1-2
Nathan Gaitens – 2 GP, 1-1-2 (on an active 2 game point streak)
