Svelte success

Being skinny on the back end no problem for Dukes

STORY: JASON PARKS

Injuries and absences have been part of the story of the Wellington Dukes (5-1- 1) early on in the 2026-27 Ontario Junior Hockey League season.

Thankfully, maladies and paperwork lags haven’t become THE story for the locals.

With gumption, chewing gum, spit-andpolish, some bailer wire and a little help from their friends, the Dukes picked up a pair of wins last week, quelling the Menace in Milton on Tuesday before outlasting the visiting North York Rangers on Friday.

The wins were produced with a lineup far from what Wellington Coach and General Manager Jacob Panetta imagined he would have at his disposal when the club kicked off the campaign earlier this month.

Ethan Murray, better than a point-pergame player last season in Wellington, is still out of the lineup and isn’t expected back until some time next month. Overage defenceman Cooper Woron was seen hobbling around the track at the arena Friday night, leading this observer to understand his recovery time is being measured in weeks. Until he was sidelined in Milton with a lower body injury, Woron had three points in his first six games.

Cole Mulder could be back into the lineup by the end of week, but was still not ready for action against the Rangers. In addition to missing defenders Mulder and Woron, Wellington blueliners Galen O’Shea and Gavin Godick are also on the shelf. Thankfully, Wellington has been getting great mileage out of affiliated players Ty Mulder (Picton Pirates) and Jaden Leach (Quinte Red Devils).

Finally, dual citizens Jacob Vellucci and Mason Raycroft are still stuck in hockey limbo. Their inactivity is all thanks to USA Hockey and Hockey Canada needing an intermediary in the form of the International Ice Hockey Federation to process transfer agreements. A 23-year pact between USA Hockey and Hockey Canada ended in May and, mirroring the tenuous geopolitical times we live under, neither body seems to want to work with one another for the benefit of players moving both ways across the border.

So the IIHF is involved. And adjudicating transfer requests at glacial pace.

TWO POINTS ARE TWO POINTS
Panetta admitted the game video from Wellington’s 3-1 win over the Blueshirts would be tossed in the trash as soon as possible. Save for a couple of spectacular goals by Landon Marleau and superb goaltending by North York’s Joe D’ Angelo, this game wasn’t pretty. A steady sojourn to the sin bin by both teams and a lack of scoring punch on the power play made the contest difficult to digest.

“It’s tough to develop any flow in a game like this, but I’m proud of the guys sticking together and seeing this one through. We’ve played a lot of hockey in the last two weeks and it’s nice to see when we don’t bring our A game to the rink that our B game can still get us a positive result,” Panetta told the Times. “Going into February, these points we can scrape out in games like this are going to prove huge.”

Just before Joey Lavender led the club in a victory dance around the dressing room to the tune of WWE superstar John Cena’s entrance music, Assistant Coach Darcy Murphy could be heard emphatically telling his charges to head home for the weekend and not think about hockey for a couple days.

Sage advice.

“They will be back here Monday and it will be nice to have four days of practice to nail down some systems work because we really haven’t made a lot of time to do that in the last two weeks,” the skipper added.

Evidence of that came in the first and second period when Wellington came up mostly dry on their power play. The man-advantage produced a pair of goals over 10 opportunities, but it was a struggle.

Down 1-0 early, Jayden Levesque bagged his second of the year on a power play to even the score. The tally was more muscle in front of the net and less crisp puck movement around the outside that opened a shooting lane.

Early in the second, North York was penalized twice in rapid succession and Marleau turned in some razzle dazzle at the side of the North York net to lift a puck up and over D’Angelo at 4:30.

In the third, Wellington was looking for an insurance goal and found it in Marleau’s second of the contest.

Zach Mascard led an odd man rush up the ice and brilliantly out-waited a sprawling North York defender before teeing up a hard-charging Marleau. The San Jose, CA native buried a bar down laser beam at 9:57 to make the score 3-1.

The Dukes had a full 5-on-3 opportunity late in the period to seal the deal, but D’Angelo came up big a few times to keep the Wellington lead to two. With D’Angelo on the bench for an extra attacker, Marleau went hunting for a hat trick in the final minute, but was unable to dial long distance and find the vacated North York vestibule.

Dryden Riley was his usual solid self, making 25 stops for his fifth win in seven starts. Under fire for much of the contest, D’Angelo turned aside 38 volleys.

MENACING
Last Tuesday, the Dukes handed Milton their first setback of the season. After falling behind 2-0, Wellington shook off a bad case of bus legs and finally caught fire in the second.

While rookie Oliver Coyle’s second of the year at 3:34 of the middle stanza started Wellington’s point parade, the power play pushed it into overdrive in the back half of the frame.

Enjoying a lengthy two-man advantage, Marleau set up Jordan Mayo at 13:58 to equalize the score at 2-2.

Then, at the 18:34 mark, the pair reciprocated and it was Marleau pushing Wellington ahead 3-2 at the end of 40 minutes.

Luca Spano scored early in the third for the home side, bringing the score to 3-3, but Mayo’s second of the game on the power play 90 seconds later was all the locals needed on this night.

Sammy Longo’s fourth of the year into a yawning Milton mesh mansion sealed the scoring at 5-3. Riley was busy in this one, making 39 saves.

Of OJHL goalies that have played at least a handful of games, the Trenton native is second in Goals Against Average (2.42) and Save Percentage (.932).

Zach Mascard picked up a pair of helpers in the third and led OJHL skaters with 11 assists through seven games.

The Dukes are off to the gateway of the Trent-Severn on Friday night to close out September against (at the time of this writing) the still winless Golden Hawks. It’s still early, but times have been tough in Trenton post Derek Smith.

HEADS UP AT HEIDELBERG

The current scribe of this piece would be remiss if they didn’t say thank you for the opportunity and salute a previous key puncher who dutifully covered the Wellington Dukes for more than two decades. Rick Conroy and Kathleen Sabyan endeared themselves to local hockey watchers by covering the team and while also serving as key members of the billet army that kept the players like Glen Belmore and Curtis Leonard fed and cared for. All while raising their own young family. Thank you Rick and Kathleen (whose images will continue to bring much needed colour to the black and white reportage). Your work is appreciated by anyone that’s watched more than a minute of Dukes hockey in the last quarter century.

Speaking of Dukes from the 2011 era, congratulations are  in order for Sean Rudy. Many fans remember with reverence the Long Sault., ON native beating Jake Patterson of the Soo Thunderbirds in quadruple overtime to put the Dukes into the 2011 Dudley Hewitt Cup finals against the host Huntsville Otters the following day. Which they won. Earlier this month, the Ahkwesáhsne Mohawk Board of Education named Rudy as an associate principal. Previously, the lanky forward who had 127 points for the Dukes over two seasons, spent seven years with the Cree School Board as a teacher, Head Teacher and Counsellor in Academic Training.