The McLean & Dickey Orillia Terriers have been eliminated from the second round of the Provincial Junior Hockey League playoffs.
The Terriers surrendered a 3-1 series lead to the Schomberg Cougars with their stellar season ending following a heart-breaking 5-1 loss in Game 7 on home ice Saturday night.
There was a nervous energy among the more than 784 Jr. C hockey fans inside Rotary Place on Saturday night as the largest crowd of the season jammed into the stands, hoing to cheer their team on to seventh heaven.
"It meant a lot," Terriers captain Broderick Black said after the game. "It's crazy to see how much support we got and I loved every second of it."
The Cougars, however, preyed on the nervous energy, jumping on the scoreboard 10 minutes into the first period when forward Luke Miehm beat Terriers goalie Wade Monague with a snap shot from the left hash marks.
Two minutes later, forward Chris Dirracolo fired a slap shot from the point and beat Monague five-hole to give the Cougars a two-goal advantage early.
Monague was sharp down the stretch in the opening period, shutting the door on a two-on-none opportunity and thwarting plenty of high-risk scoring opportunities, including one penalty kill.
The Terriers' bad luck didn’t turn to start the second period. Dirracolo found himself on a two-on-one with forward Marc Bottero, who sauced the cross-crease dish that was fired bar down past Monague.
It got worse. The Cougars increased their lead to 4-0 when forward Stuart Barber beat Monague five-hole with a weak backhander. Terriers head coach Dalyn Telford called a timeout and pulled Monague in favour of Reed Spinola.
"I showed up to the rink today feeling good and prepared," Monague said. "I just couldn't get anything going."
Finally, something positive for the home side happened. Minutes after the crippling fourth goal against, the Terriers found themselves on a five-on-three power play. Mason Beck cashed in on a feed from forward Josh Brown and defenceman Isaiah Philip to bring the deficit to three.
"It was a big moment for sure," Beck said. "I was telling the boys who were on the ice for that five-on-three that we needed to get one quick and try to get some momentum back."
Beck says the goal gave the home side some hope; they believed they could come all the way back to win.
"We had a game plan to get one quick in the third and then figure everything else out five minutes at a time," he said.
In the third period, the Terriers applied the pressure, out-shooting the Cougars 18-8. The home side also out-shot their opponent on the night 45-39, but Cougars goaltender Tristan Szymanowski held the Terriers to the one goal.
"They scored on their opportunities and we didn't," Black lamented.
The final dagger came with just over a minute to play when Miehm would score his eighth of the postseason into the empty net.
Despite the season-ending loss, Black says it was a successful season. The Terriers finished the 2021/22 season with a record of 21-8-1, which placed them second in the North Carruthers Division.
"Probably three-quarters of our team are rookies," he said. "We definitely exceeded expectations."
Black says the future is bright for the Terriers.
"If guys return, I think we will finish even better than we did this year," he said.
Unfortunately for the Terriers, they will need a new captain next year. A 21-year-old, Black, has played his final junior hockey game.
"It hasn't really sunk in too much yet," he said. "I wouldn't change anything about my career. Coming to Orillia was really good for me coming from Midland where we never won a playoff series to almost making it to the finals."
Being the captain of the Terriers is an opportunity Black says he will cherish for the rest of his life.
"It meant a lot to me," he said. "We had a really good bond. Everyone here feels like a brother to me, and it was the closest I've ever been with a team."
Forward Noah Sands is the only other Terrier who is forced to retire from junior hockey after the heart-wrenching game 7 defeat.
"Obviously it sucks to go out the way we did, but, I couldn't ask for a better group to go out with," he said.
Sands agrees with Black about the future of junior hockey in Orillia.
"I think the future is really bright," he said. "Especially being such a young team this year, I think they have great things ahead for them."
The Terriers were without big physical defenceman Taylor Rehling in Game 7 as he was serving the first of a five-game suspension for checking from behind in Game 6.
