Voodoos capture first ever NOJHL title (VIDEO)

Voodoos Championship game video April 22 17 from Chris Dawson on Vimeo.

The Powassan Voodoos used the strength of three first period tallies and four more in the second stanza to defeat the Blind River Beavers 7-4 Friday in Game 4 of the Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League’s Copeland Cup – McNamara Trophy championship series at the Blind River Community Centre.

With the result, Powassan takes the best-of-seven series 4-0 and in turn claim their first-ever NOJHL championship.

The Voodoos will now move on to represent the NOJHL at the Dudley-Hewitt Cup Central Canada Jr. A Championship, May 2-6 in Trenton, Ont.

At that four-team event they will meet the Trenton Golden Hawks (Host-OJHL), Georgetown Raiders (OJHL) and Dryden GM Ice Dogs (SIJHL) with a berth to the RBC Cup Canadian Jr. A Championship, May 13-21, in Cobourg, Ont., on the line.

In Friday’s match-up, Powassan set the tone early with Dylan D’Agostino finishing off a goal mouth scramble 1:16 into the contest.

The visitors then went up by a pair, five minutes into the period, as Andy Baker made a nice move in front, but was denied by Beavers’ netminder Myles Hektor, however Gabriel Rheault corralled the rebound and stuffed in his fourth of the postseason.

Blind River got themselves on the board three and a half minutes later as Zak Lambrecht intercepted a pass just inside the Powassan zone then pushed the puck up to Max Khull, who in turn quickly fed Yianni Liarakos in the slot as he wired his attempt and cleanly beating Voodoos’ starter Nate McDonald.

The Voodoos restored their two-goal cushion at 12:33 as Parker Bowman slid a backhand to an open Gary Mantz, who ripped one top shelf over the glove of Hektor to make it 3-1 after one to pick-up at least one point in all 12 games his side played.

Continuing to battle, the Beavers moved back to within one 2:58 into the middle stanza as Liarakos added another off a neat deflection of a Lambrecht shot.

Once again however, the vaunted Voodoos offence came to life striking four times in under a three-minute span to take control with Rhys Brown, Mantz, Rheault and Tyson Gilmour all finding the back of the net in rapid succession and running their cushion to five heading into the final frame.

A five-on-three power play helped the Beavers get one back as D-man Cole Peck stepped into one from close range and blasted home his fifth of the playoffs at 9:04.

Another late man advantage allowed Blind River to tack on one more with Liarakos wristing one past McDonald to finish off a hat trick as he added the final goal of the NOJHL playoffs and wrap-up his year by leading the league in playoff scoring with 25 points.

Shots on goal in the contest favoured the Voodoos by a 38-25 count with McDonald posting the win.

It's the first NOJHL title for a local team since the North Bay Jr. Trappers captured the NOJHL title back in 2013.