Despite a valiant effort, four local players with the Penetang Kings Jr. C hockey club came short of capturing the team’s third straight league championship and chance to defend the all-Ontario championship they had won the previous two consecutive years.Goalie Corey Moore of Utterson, forward Ricky Greenslade of Bracebridge, defenceman Shayne Wright and forward Adam Heskamp, both of Gravenhurst helped the Kings to a 35-6-0-1 season that ended four points behind the first-place Alliston Hornets.
The first round of playoffs saw Penetanguishene beat Schomberg in four games, and won the next series against Fergus 4-2, before taking on Alliston in the Georgian Bay Mid-Ontario League championship finals.
The Kings came out strong in the first game, but lost four straight to Alliston after getting into some penalty trouble, said Heskamp.
“Their goalie stood on his head,” the veteran forward said, noting Alliston is strong defensively and does not have many rookie players. “We outshot them at least two games, but we couldn’t get by their goalie. He was too strong. I don’t think we scored more than two goals on them in one game.”
Heskamp, 21, who leaves the Kings this year since he is no longer eligible to play junior hockey, said the 2007-08 season started out pretty good as the players grew as a team early on.
“We had a good number of rookies that were new to the team who stepped up early when some of us veterans were tired,” said Heskamp. The Kings were crowned all-Ontario champs last year, and only two months later were back on the ice for the 2007-08 regular season.
“Once we got going, we played really well, until we played Alliston,” he said. “It’s not that we were a bad team; they were just better.”
New to the team this year was 17-year-old Greenslade, the Kings’ 11th-place points leader with 21 points, including five goals.
Heskamp, a left winger was the team’s eighth-place points leader in the 2007-08 regular season with 28 points including 14 goals and 14 assists. He had nine points in 13 playoff games. Wright, a veteran rear guard, notched nine points.
In his first year with the team, Moore played 900 minutes between the pipes, recording an astonishing 14 wins and one loss. The 18-year-old also recorded two wins in the playoffs.
Heskamp said his money’s on Alliston to win the provincials and the Clarence Schmalz Cup in 2008.
He is proud of his four-year hockey career in Penetanguishene, which started and ended with making the league finals with two consecutive all-Ontario banners in between.
“We had a winning year every time and that’s nothing to complain about,” he said.
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