April 14, 2023 at 6:30 am
Sarnia Sting and Saginaw Spirit will face off in the second round of the Ontario Hockey League playoffs.
The race will take place Friday night at the Progressive Auto Sales Arena, with the second race scheduled for Sunday afternoon at The Hive.
Sting head coach Alan Letang knew the Saginaw would face a tough test.
“I don’t think it’s any different than what we had in Guelph,” Letang said. “They’ve got some dangerous players up front, they’ve got a keeper and if we don’t get traffic in front of him and he sees the puck, he’s going to make these saves. It’s going to be a good series. It’s going to be exciting. Exciting, fast and physical, I think the players are really looking forward to it.”
Letang said home advantage will again be key, but they must also be strong away from home.
“As much as you love winning at home, you still need to learn to play away,” he said. “You have to learn to block out the opposing crowd, block out the little distractions that happen on the road. Like I said to our guys in the first round, when you go into the other team’s building, everything around you is just white noise. We focus on what we have to do, focus on our game plan and focus on how we have to execute. We have to fight against adversity, that’s what we did in the first round and we’ll be even stronger in the second round. Fight utterly.”
The two clubs each won three games in the regular season series, but the Stings won the games convincingly 8-2, 6-1 and 6-3.
The Sting finished third in the OHL’s Western Conference and defeated the Guelph Storm in the first round of six games. Fourth-placed Spirit came out on top in a seven-match series with Flint.
Next Tuesday and Thursday, the series moves to Saginaw for Games 3 and 4.
You can listen to every game live on 103.9 FM and 1070 AM – CHOK.
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Game 1 – Friday 14 April in Sarnia, 7:05pm
Game 2 – Suns. April 16 in Sarnia, 2:05pm
Game 3 – Tuesday. April 18 in Saginaw, 7:05pm
Game 4 – Thursday. April 20 in Saginaw, 7:05pm
Game 5 – Saturday. April 22 in Sarnia, 7:05pm*
Game 6 – Suns. April 23 in Saginaw, 5:30pm*
Game 7 – Tuesday. April 25 in Sarnia, 7:05pm*