Whitby Minor Hockey Association

The road to “perfection” was by no means easy, admits Whitby Coach Justin Collins.

The first two games in the championship finals saw Whitby battle back to overcome two-goal deficits.  In Game 2 in particular, “not a lot was going right” in the first two periods, said Collins. “Between the second and third, the coaches stressed sticking to the game plan and reminded the boys that we still had a full 15 minutes to get the job done. Once we scored early in the third to make it 3-2, I knew we were in good shape,” he said.

In the earlier semi-finals, Whitby defeated a strong Ajax Red team in three shut-out wins. Prior to that Whitby finished the regular season with a record of 24-0-0 in a league that included two teams in both Clarington and Ajax, along with Pickering and Belleville.

Netting 162 goals while allowing only 29 paved the way for Whitby finishing with 48 points, compared to their next closest rival Pickering, who finished the season with 33 points.

The perfect record was not something Whitby Coach Justin Collins even thought about until the team was 18 or 19 games in. “Once we got to that point it became a team goal,” said Collins. “We used it as motivation to work hard no matter who we were playing.”

Coach Collins said what’s most impressive about his team is its depth at every position and the commitment to put team before self. Still, he was “very surprised” that his team could not be beat by the strong regional rivals. “With the great games Pickering and Ajax Red gave us (played both 7 times) you would have thought one would have gotten away,” he said.

The Whitby team includes Owen Tapper, Garrett Joss, Keegan Price, Nolan Smith, Luke Macpherson, Ethan Lee, Alexander MacKenzie-Ede, Robert Baxter, Matthew Poitras, Gabriel Sorichetti, Cody Hagerman, Nolan Collins, Max Vautour, Finn Grace, Brian Downey and goalies Andrew Ballantyne and Nolan Dunn.  The assistant coaches are Jay Lee, Phil Poitras, and Erik Sorichetti. The trainer is Rob Tapper and manager is Tony Sorichetti.