Blackhawks play home opener Saturday; Wayne Quint to be honored before game

The Houlton-Hodgdon Blackhawks opened their 2009-10 season last week traveling to Presque Isle to take on the defending Eastern Maine champion Wildcats. This proved to be a difficult contest for the Blackhawks, as they came out on with a 4-0 loss.
    The Wildcats scored two goals in the first period and another two in the third to put the Blackhawks away. In their first game, the Blackhawks never seemed to get on track as they allowed 18 shots in the first period and seemed to be out of sync all game, according to coach Joel Trickey.
“While we pulled it together before the second period, we had dug ourselves too deep a hole to climb out of and never did get back in the contest,” said Trickey.
Houlton-Hodgdon goalie Malik Abouleish faced 33 shots and the Blackhawks rebounded somewhat to put 27 shots on the Presque Isle goalkeeper, including 15 in the final period, but couldn’t net that all important first goal to change the momentum of the game.
The Blackhawks faired better in their second game of the season, as they traveled to Orono for a match with a youthful Red Riots team.
The Blackhawks took charge early in this contest to take a 6-1 victory, outshooting the Red Riots 13-7 in the first period taking a 1-0 lead after freshman Parker Sanderson’s first varsity goal.
The second period saw the Blackhawks turn up the intensity even more and outshoot the Red Riots 12-2, taking a 4-0 lead into the locker room after two periods of play. Ben Ward notched two goals and Cody Briggs added another, with an assist going to Nick Chase on Briggs’ tally.
The third period saw Briggs adding another goal on assists by Dylan Gard and Jordan Brown and defenseman Kam Lincoln adding an insurance marker, assisted by Briggs.
Abouleish stopped 10 of 11 shots in the match and the Blackhawks put 43 shots on the Orono goalie.
The Blackhawks are 1-1 going into their first home contest of the year on Saturday against the Greely Rangers of Cumberland.
“We started the season off on the wrong foot, as the team seemed to forget the game plan in Presque Isle,” Trickey said. “This resulted in a very poor performance and a loss. We had a very productive practice Thursday, as we reinforced our team philosophy, while spending the entire practice going over the plan of attack for Friday’s game. The kids really came out Friday and showed they understand what we are trying to do tactic wise and they stepped up their skating and overall intensity a lot. This bodes well for the season if we can bring this attitude and intensity to every game.”
The Blackhawks’ home opener against Western Maine perennial power Greely should be a good test of where they stand in the early season, said Trickey.
“This should be a very entertaining game to watch,” he added. “The team would like to extend an invitation to everyone to attend as we are going to honor Wayne Quint for his 50 years’ of service and commitment to the students of Houlton High School and the Houlton area athletic community before the game.”