It had been nearly one month since the Carleton Place Canadians shook up their roster at the CJHL trade deadline.
Friday night marked the first look for head coach and GM Brent Sullivan at his newly formed roster and it was a scoring barrage against the Smiths Falls Bears, with the Canadians coming away with the 11-6 victory on the road.
Fresh faces in Mark MacPhee and Matteo Disipio made their mark with a hat-trick and a pair of goals, respectively, while holdovers Derek Hamilton (two goals and two assists) and Bill Gourgon (five assists) paced a high-powered attack.
Hamilton and Gourgon connected 4:03 into the first period to open the scoring at the Smiths Falls Memorial Centre. The teams combined for an additional five goals in the opening frame and went to the intermission tied at 3-3.
Carleton Place then took control of the game in the second period.
The scoring merely took a pause to start the middle period as neither team could tickle the twine for the first 10 minutes. Four goals in 6:04 then changed the game in the Canadians favour. Disipio scored his first goal for Carleton Place to give his new team the lead before Ethan Woolsey scored a pair of goals around a Jackson Hay tally for a 7-3 lead after 40 minutes of play.
Hamilton kept the scoring going by adding to the Canadians lead less than a minute into the third period. The scoring pace of the first period found its way back into the game during the third period as the Canadians and Bears shared seven goals in the final frame.
MacPhee added a pair of goals to cap off his hat-trick while Disipio scored his second goal of the game to cap off the 11 goals scored by Carleton Place. Meanwhile, Brody Fournier scored his second goal of the game as well in the final frame to be good enough to earn the third star performance in Friday’s game.
A busy month of February continues for the Canadians against the Nepean Raiders on Sunday who are coming off a 10-2 loss against the Navan Grads in their first game of 2022 on Friday night.
