By: Daniel Vazzoler
The Carleton Place Canadians kicked off the month of December in a winning way by beating the Kemptville 73’s 5-3 on Sunday.
It may not have been the cleanest of victory for Carleton Place as a busy second period made the score 3-3 heading into the third period where the Canadians added a pair of goals for the victory. Canadians coach Jason Clarke said the game was a display of the character and effort of his team with three of the top defencemen and a forward gone at the Team Canada East try-out for the World Jr. A Challenge.
“It was a good effort with us missing four guys, including three on the back-end,” said Jamie Rintoul, Canadians assistant coach in charge of running the defence. “We had one forward playing ‘D’ and two affiliates. It was a good effort from the three guys that are here, they battled, played extra minutes and it was good to get the two points.”
Canadians captain Cade Townend, along with Eastan Eckert and Brett Thorne from the back-end are with forward Ryland Mosley competing for a spot on Team Canada East. With camp lasting until Dec. 4, Sunday could be the only one where they are out of the Carleton Place line-up but the Canadians could be without the four players until the final games of the month with the tournament lasting until Dec. 16 – a potential total of six games missed.
That’s why Ben Tupker said it was important to start this stretch with a victory.
“I think it was a good confidence-booster in going into next week with a couple of big games ahead,” he said. “The three guys on the back-end and the one forward we called up really stepped up. A lot of the guys that are regulars on the team made them feel comfortable and told them what to do.”
John Copeland, typically a forward option for Carleton Place, was called upon as a defenceman on Sunday while Clarke opted to use defenceman Chris Meininger and forward Spencer Marshall from the CCHL2’s Carleton Place Jr. Canadians.
The biggest surprise, for those who aren’t in the organization, may have been Under-18 call-up Patrick Larkin who Clarke and Rintoul used with regularity on the blue-line.
“Other than camps, I haven’t really seen Patrick play (often) and he was very impressive,” Rintoul praised. “He was very composed, showed no nerves or anything like that. He got an assist on the first goal and was rock-solid moving forward. He’ll probably get a few more games down the stretch here.”
“I’m just happy I got the first game in and now I can continue playing my normal game,” Larkin said. “At first I was nervous, new atmosphere, new team-mates but I think after the first period I calmed down and just played my game.”
Larkin got an assist on Cole Beckstead’s first goal of the game to give Carleton Place a lead late in the first period before the Canadians and 73’s traded five goals in the second period. Tupker scored one of the goals in the second period and also tallied the game-winning goal late in the third period before Beckstead scored a last-second empty net goal.
“It was good to wrap up the week-end with a couple of goals, my line-mates did a good job of finding me,” Tupker said. “It was a good bounce on the penalty kill which led to the break and then Zach (Tupker) and Reece (Bolton) did a good job of finding me in the slot there for the second one. It was just all five guys on the ice doing their part and I was lucky enough to put it in the net.”
The Canadians will have to wait and see if any of the players out at Team Canada East Selection camp will be returning before Carleton Place’s next game on Friday, travelling to face the Navan Grads. The next home games for Carleton Place is on Sunday at 3 p.m. against the Rockland Nationals.
