By Wendi Reardon Price
Clarkston News Sports Writer
Bloomfield Hills — Clarkston Varsity Hockey finished their home game early against Canton on Saturday with a 8-0 victory.
“They were excited,” said Nathan Bryer, about the boys energy going into the game. He added it was a slow week with the Wednesday game against Flint Powers cancelled as well as Thursday’s practice because of the snow days.
“It was a bit of a slow start which is to be expected with you have a couple days off,” he said. “We got our bearings in the second period and had a big third period.”
The Wolves scored five goals in the third period to end the game with nine minutes to go.
Ron Wade led the team with three goals and two assists.
“He had a big game,” Bryer said. “Three goals and two assists for five points – that’s always a big night.”
Devon Collis scored one goal and had one assist.
“Devon as usual was good,” Bryer said. “Then what we have talked about all year. We have scoring from everywhere. We kind of had scoring up and down our lineup. It is the same message we have said all year – our team’s depth shows up in games like that.”
Owen Croston, Logan Golub, Eric Wade and Brendan Rhodes each scored one goal.
Blake Botterill had four assists and Dutch Snyder had two assists for the night. Brady Earing, Evan Adams, George Walker, Frank Stanek, Theo Walker, Marek Drennan and Brady Damian each had one assist for the night.
Damian had 12 saves in the night in his shutout. The Wolves made 28 shots on Canton’s net.
“Canton is historically a very competitive team,” Bryer added “They are in a little bit of a down year, but they play in a very tough league. So that pace of play we bring to the rink they were very used to that. From that standpoint it was a challenge. Our depth and ability to score goals took over in the third period.”
The Wolves (15-1-2, 6-0-1 OAA Red) host Bloomfield Hills at Detroit Skating Club on Thursday, 6 p.m. .
They head to Suburban Ice Rochester on Friday for a game against Stoney Creek, 8:30 p.m. Then, they head to Birmingham Ice Arena for their Saturday game against Birmingham Unified, 7 p.m.
“This is a very busy week,” said Bryer. “They are all tough games. They are all league games – we put ourselves in a position to win the OAA. We are in a good place because we control it. We don’t have to scoreboard watch and keep doing our job and winning games, the boys have a chance to win the OAA this year.”
He added they are in the stretch with six games until the post-season begins.
“The priority is making sure we are playing the right way and we are playing at a high level,” Bryer said. “We have a lot of confidence in our abilities going into playoffs. On the flip side, we have played Bloomfield already once. We have played Birmingham already once. Stoney Creek, we haven’t played yet. They are a team that’s really picked it up in the second half. All three are going to be tough games. Any league division game is going to be a tough one.”

  Clarkston Varsity Hockey, Hockey