Jeff Heuchert
Staff Reporter

The Stratford Cullitons’ bench boss is hoping the resiliency and dedication his players showed throughout a tumultuous regular season will carry over into post-season play.

The Cullitons – who persevered through the franchise’s longest losing streak and dropped 13 of 15 games around the season’s mid-way point – opened up their best-of-seven quarter-final playoff series with the Cambridge Winter Hawks earlier this week.

Games 1 and 2 were played in Cambridge Tuesday and Wednesday night, while Game 3 is set to go at the Allman Arena Friday.

Prior to opening the series, Cullitons coach Phil Westman stressed to the Gazette how important it was his team win at least one of the opening games. He said he liked how his team matched up with the Winter Hawks, who finished in fourth in the Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League’s  Midwestern Conference, eight points ahead of Stratford.

“They’ve had a good run this season, and they’ve got some experienced players still leftover from the Sutherland Cup team,  so they’re not going to be easy,” he said.

Westman said his team would have to keep an eye in particular on Cambridge forward Cody Hall, who finished tops on his team with 75 points, good for 16th overall in the league. In head-to-head action this year, Hall netted seven goals and 12 points against Stratford.

“I think they’ve got a pretty well-rounded team ... some good players up front,” he added, noting, however, he felt his team had greater depth throughout the roster, and would be able to ice four strong lines.

Westman also indicated he felt Cambridge might be susceptible between the pipes.

“I’m not sure how their goaltending is going to be in the playoffs,” he noted. “That’s going to be key. We have to get pucks in front of the net and lots of traffic.”
Cambridge won the season series with Stratford 4-3. Four of those games were decided by one goal, and Westman pointed out his team was able to score at least four goals in over half the games, so scoring hasn’t been an issue.

Stratford enters the playoffs riding a two-game winning streak. Westman said it was important his team, which had lost three in a row heading into the final two games of the season, right the ship quickly.

“We’re happy with the outcome (of the regular season),” he said, adding, “I’ve got everybody healthy, and we’ve got our line combinations the way we want them.”

“I think we’ve been looking forward to playoffs for the last two to three weeks,” he added, noting despite the roller coaster of a regular season, his team remained optimistic heading to Cambridge.

“Every team is going to face that adversity, and we dealt with it early on, and I think our team is stronger for it,” he said. “We had an average season and we’re looking to have a real good playoffs.”

Stratford 6 - Kitchener 1
The Stratford Cullitons wrapped up their regulars season in fine fashion last Friday evening in front of 911 playoff-hungry fans at the Allman Arena.

Six different Cullitons scored on the way to 6-1 win over the last-place Kitchener Dutchmen.

The win gave Stratford its second win in a row, snapping a three game losing streak to finish the regular season with a 23-27-1 record.

Goals in the first came from Brad McClure and Kurtis Bailey, while in the second Kyle Wilhelm netted his team-leading 61st point, followed by goals from Myles Melchers and Brock Reynolds. Steve McParland, who finished with a four point night, scored the lone third period goal.

Kitchener’s goal came in the second from Ryan Clarkson, his 27th of the season.

With the game out of reach in the third, the physical play picked up – and so to did the penalty minutes. A fighting major and game misconduct were given to Wilhelm and Kitchener’s Chad Nicholson.