NEWS RELEASE
NORTHERN ONTARIO JUNIOR HOCKEY LEAGUE
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A two-goal night from Rylan Gibbs helped send the Blind River Beavers past the Espanola Paper Kings 5-1 Saturday in a Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League neutral site affair at the Wikwemikong Recreation Centre.
Collecting the lone marker of the opening 20 minutes, Espanola’s Jack Anderson drove hard down the right wing into Blind River territory and wired a rising short-side wrister over netminder Bronx Bodnar at 17:29.
Drawing even four and a half minutes into the middle frame, Gibbs lifted in a backhand from the left of Paper Kings’ goaltender Jack Helkie.
Building on that, Blind River took the lead at 6:29 when Jacob Beemer spotted A.J. Saadeh moving in from the point and put a pass to him that he ripped into the left corner.
Another from Gibbs made it 3-1 when he was left with plenty of space to plant one into the top right-hand corner on Helkie.
That also saw James Meredith enter in relief for Espanola as he went the rest of the way.
A fourth in the frame put the Beavers up by three after 40 minutes thanks to YiBin Yoo, who opted to shoot on a two-on-one and buried his chance.
Providing some insurance in the third, Blind River’s Clark Furman side-stepped an Espanola defender in the high slot then pumped a shot high over the blocker at 4:28 to round out the scoring and close out the victory.
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