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Pre-Season - Game 1
Sarnia Sting at Windsor Spitfires
September 3, 2009
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WINDSOR - The
Sarnia Sting opened their pre-season
schedule dropping a 5-3 decision to the
Windsor Spitfires, Thursday night before an
announced crowd of 5,249 fans at the Windsor
Family Credit Union Centre.
It was the first
of five exhibition games the Sting will play
in the Ontario Hockey League over the next
two weeks. Tonight Sarnia travels to London
to meet the Knights while those two teams
will have a return match on Saturday at 7:30
p.m. at the Sarnia Sports and Entertainment
Centre.
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Last night's
game saw the Sting jump out to a 2-0 lead
after one period before the Spitfires roared
back to hold a 4-3 advantage after 40
minutes. The score remained that way until
Windsor added their fifth goal into an open
net with 17.7 seconds remaining in the third
period.
The Sting had
nine veterans dressed while Windsor had only
six veterans in their lineup.
Sting head coach
Dave MacQueen, who watched the entire game
from the press box, was not unhappy with his
team's performance.
"It was a good
start for exhibition. This is a tough
building, especially for our young kids. I
know Windsor dressed only a handful of
veterans, but they are the defending
Memorial Cup champions. We came in here and
played hard."
Two rookies
scored for the Sting, first-round draft pick
Brett Ritchie and walk-on Tyler Peters, who
played junior B for the Sarnia Legionnaires
last year. Veteran defenceman Joe Rogalski
also scored while defencemen Nathan
Chiarlitti had a pair of assists.
Ritchie said he
has never played in front of that many
people before.
"I was a little
nervous when the game started. It was nice
to score in the first period. It got the
bugs out and picked up the team. This was
the first actual OHL game for a lot of us. I
wasn't used to that many people watching. It
was a little intimidating. No one cheered
when we scored."
Peters, who also
had an assist, said it felt great to get two
points in his first OHL game. "Skating
around in warmup and seeing the crowd coming
in made me a little nervous. But once the
game started, I calmed down. Scoring the
goal really helped settle me down." As
a walk-on, Peters knows he is a longshot of
cracking the Sting roster.
"But I want to
improve myself and the best way to do that
is play at a higher level. It would be
awesome to make the Sting, but it was
awesome playing for the Legionnaires last
year."
MacQueen says the objectives of pre-season
is to see who fits where and also to see
whether or not some of the young guys can
take jobs away from the veterans. He also
said he feels good about his draft picks and
how they are going to fit in with the team
this season.
Richard Panik,
Windsor's highly-touted European pick, and
also a draft pick of the Tampa Bay
Lightning, led Windsor with two goals and
assists. James Woodcroft, Austin Watson and
Michael Whaley also scored while Cam Fowler,
another highly-touted draft pick had two
assists.
Windsor held a
37-32 edge in shots on goal. Shayne Campbell
went the distance in goal for the Sting. "I
thought Shayne had a good game tonight,"
said MacQueen. "He looked relaxed and played
well."
Windsor had two
power play goals and Sarnia one. There were
four fights including a spirited match
between Sting rookie Anton Zupancic and
Windsor's Adam Wallace.
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