The Winchester Hawks welcomed the Embrun Panthers to the Joel Steele Community Centre for their first exhibition game of the season. The Hawks defence boxed out the Panthers’ forward after he was given a glorious scoring opportunity. The Hawks should be stronger this season as they welcome back a lot of second-year players. The Panthers only had five returnees this season but will wait until junior A makes some cuts.     Moore photo

Jeff Moore
Record Staff
STITTSVILLE—The Winchester Hawks had two games this past weekend in exhibition play in the CCHL2 as they welcomed the Embrun Panthers on Saturday afternoon and travelled to Stittsville on Sunday afternoon to take on the Richmond Royals.

Royals 5 Hawks 1
The Winchester Hawks travelled to the Goulbourn Recreation Centre in Stittsville on Sun., Sept. 2, to take on the Richmond Royals in the CCHL 2 exhibition schedule. The Hawks were coming off a tough loss but they played a competitive game to the Embrun Panthers 4-3 and looked to get on the winning track.

The Royals opened the scoring at 13:49 on an unassisted goal but the Hawks bounced back as Kyle Kuehni fired home his second of the preseason from Evan Landry and Garrett Craig at 16:13.

The teams took the deadlock into the first intermission. The Royals scored the only goals of the second period at 15:51 and with just 47 seconds remaining. The Royals took a 3-1 lead into the second intermission.

The Royals’ offence was just too much for the Hawks in the third period as they added another two goals at 10:44 and and 17:10. The Hawks had no answer as they dropped their second game of the weekend 5-1.

Playing in goal for the Hawks were Darien Johnson 11/12, Lucas Devries 8/10 and Connor McNair 10/12. The Hawks were out shot 34-29.

Panthers 4 Hawks 3
The Winchester Hawks welcomed the Embrun Panther to the Joel Steele Community Centre on Sat., Sept. 1, for their first game of the CCHL2 exhibition schedule. The Hawks opened their training camp on Wed., Aug. 29 and Thurs., Aug. 30 with 19 skaters and six goalies.

The Hawks wasted little time getting on the scoreboard as last year’s captain scored an unassisted goal just 1:37 into the first period to take a 1-0 lead. The Panthers evened the score when Brandon Paquette snapped one home from Robert Beaudoin at 7:45.

The game remained tied until there was 2:35 left in the opening frame when Kyle Kuehni found himself alone in front of the right side of the net and he roofed it from William MacDonald.

The Hawks took a 2-1 lead in the first intermission. The Panthers got to even again as Connor Drost slipped one to the back of the net from a tic-tack-goal from Paquette at 3:52. The Panthers took their first lead of the game when former Hawk, Griffin Patterson pounded one to the back of the net on the power play unassisted at 15:06.

The Panthers took a 3-2 leading the second intermission. The Hawks knotted the affair at 5:15 of the third period when Connor Weatherhead slapped one home from Declan Campbell-Hill and Kieran Gaynor.

The Panthers retook the lead when Matthieu Brennan tapped one to the back of the net from Patterson at 6:49. The Hawks had a chance to tie the game when they ended up on a power play with around five minutes remaining in regulation but they could not take advantage as the Panthers killed the penalty off.

The Hawks didn’t get a chance to pull their goalie at the end of the game as the Panthers defence closed the door as they went on to take the game 4-3.

Playing in goal for the Hawks were Christian Backman, Connor McNair and Tye Agardy and playing for the Panthers were Tyler Desjardins, Joshua Ivanski and Gabriel Arrigo.