For the third straight season the Trenton Golden Hawks will play in the Ontario Junior Hockey League championship series.
But this time the Collingwood Blues won’t be standing in their way.
Instead, Trenton will play the Milton Menace for the right to advance to the Centennial Cup in Calgary next month.
Despite a slow start the G-Hawks poured it on in the third period with three unanswered goals to beat the Haliburton Huskies 4-2 to wrap the Eastern final in five games.
Isaiah Shantz (4th goal) scored the winning goal with 3:05 left in regulation.
Trailing 2-1 after the second period, Coach Derek Smith says his team’s leadership came through in the third.
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“For 40 minutes tonight (Sunday), we weren’t at our best. Credit to Haliburton, they came out, obviously their season’s on the line, they controlled the play. Our guys talked as a group, the leadership group, and they figured out in the second intermission that we needed to be better. They came to play in the third.”
Sami Douglas-Najem (1st), Thomas Kuipers (7th) and David Fourneir (en-3rd) scored for the G-Hawks while Ryan Sanborn stopped 33 shots.
Milton won the Western Conference championship after upsetting the first place Leamington Flyers
Despite finishing third in the west, Milton advanced after eliminating the first place Leamington Flyers in five games.
The G-Hawks and the Menace only played once during the regular season, a 5-1 win in Milton on September 24.
Dates for the final series haven’t been announced yet, however, Game 1 is likely to be in Trenton this Saturday.
