BURLINGTON BLAZE AND ST CATHARINES ATHLETICS WIN AT HOME ON WEDNESDAY

Cade Cordingley shoots from the outside in the Orangeville Northmen’s season debut in St Catharines. (PHOTO: OJLL / J Shute)

For the first time in the 2025 OJLL season there were multiple games played Wednesday night. The reigning Ontario champions Orangeville Northmen travelled to St Catharines, but could only manage one goal in the final 40 minutes leading to an Athletics 9-5 win to become the first team to two wins. And, in Burlington, the 2023 Minto Cup Champions Blaze weathered a late Brampton Excelsiors comeback to win their debut 12-9.

In St Catharines, outside of an opening minute goal from Colton Armitage there was no scoring until late in the first period. Max Kruger sandwiched a pair of goals around Elijah Edwards transition marker for three goals in just under three minutes. Owen Rahn added a last minute goal to put Orangeville ahead 4-2 after one. The Athletics scored the next six goals across the intermission break and potted an empty-netter winning 9-5.

Colton Armitage (2/2), Gavin Howard (2 goals) and Arrow Booth (2/1) all scored twice for St Catharines, the latter his first OJLL goal. Keaton Zavitz (1/3) and Jameson Bucktooth (1/3) added four points. In his first start of the season Ty Wilson stopped 38 of 43 shots, including 24 of 25 over the final two periods.

Max Kruger (2 goals), Owen Rahn (1/1) and Dylan Sanderson (2 assists) were the lone multi-point scorers for Orangeville. In his Northmen debut, Evan Constantopoulos allowed just eight goals from 42 shots.

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Meanwhile, in Burlington, the Blaze led 6-4 after two periods over the Brampton Excelsiors. Nine different players combined to score those 10 goals. Through the first half of the final frame, Chuck Rawson scored twice and added an assist pushing Burlington up 9-4.

Shortly thereafter, Caiden Merritt, Marcelo Carreiro and Jacob Janke combined to get all three goals back for the Excelsiors in just over two minutes. Landon Jaeckle and Nate Renaud scored in short succession following another Blaze goal to pull within one. But a pair of empty net goals sealed a 12-9 Burlington win.

Overall, 13 players combined to score 21 goals. Burlington’s Chuck Rawson (3/2) led the way with three. Griffin Bakker stopped 28 of 37 shots faced for his first OJLL win.

Nolan Marshall (2/3) led Brampton’s attack along with Jacob Janke (2/2) and Marcelo Carreiro (1/5). Markus Madill allowed 10 goals, facing 35 shots.