Lincs ring in new year with win over first-placed Maroons

Ethan Weir, pictured, scored two goals in the St. Marys Lincolns’ 3-2 win over the Chatham Maroons on Jan. 3.

By Spencer Seymour

If the St. Marys Lincolns felt rusty from the holiday break in their return to action on Jan. 3 against the Chatham Maroons, fans wouldn’t have known it by watching the game.

With the 3-2 win, the Lincolns have not only defeated the Western Conference’s first-placed Maroons three straight times but have thoroughly outplayed Chatham in three straight outings. If not for a stellar showing by Maroons goaltender Samuel DiBlasi, the Lincolns’ win on Jan. 3 likely would have been by a larger margin.

Head coach Jeff Bradley told the Independent the Lincolns did precisely what they needed to make their return from the break as smooth as possible.

“We talked pre-game about how rust was definitely going to be a factor for both teams, and we had some things we had to focus on to overcome that, and I thought we did a good job,” said Bradley. “We worked hard, we competed, we were hard to play against and we did a great job back-checking and staying on the right side of our guys, and I think that leads to low support and easier passes to make.”

Bradley added he was most impressed with the team’s desire to come away with the victory.

“Our will to win was very impressive. Our players know how good Chatham is. They’re the reigning Sutherland Cup champions, so we want to make sure we’re giving them our best game every time because they’re the standard in the league right now, and we want to make sure we’re including ourselves in that conversation.”

As he reflected on the win, Bradley noted a big reason for the team’s strong performance was getting off on the right foot, for which credit was assigned by the bench boss to the five skaters who started the game.

“A lot of guys had a really good night, but the first shift of the game was important for us, and I thought the five who started the game for us were really, really important. We tried to establish getting pucks low, making Chatham work, making Chatham uncomfortable, and I thought Blake (Elzinga), Ryan (Hodkinson), Declan (Ready), Owen (Kalp) and James (MacGregor) were really important because it filtered through line to line to line from there.”

Just moments after killing off a penalty, the Maroons opened the scoring when Aydan Doyle ripped a shot by goaltender Brogan Colquhoun to give Chatham a 1-0 lead just over 12 minutes into the first. With just 16.8 seconds left in the opening frame, a shot by Callum McAuley was tipped by DiBlasi off the stick of the net-driving Ethan Weir to tie the game going into the second.

It appeared the game would go into the third still deadlocked 1-1, but with just four seconds left on the clock, Weir dashed down the wing and fired home his second of the night, this one on a powerplay, putting the Lincolns up 2-1 entering the final period.

A turnover early in the third led Max Skinner to get a clear path to the net and score to tie the game at two apiece just two minutes and four seconds into the third. However, the Lincolns responded less than two minutes later with a powerplay goal by McAuley. The goal was the fifth goal in as many games for the 19-year-old Timmins native.

The Lincolns went two-for-three on the powerplay and successfully killed off all three Chatham man advantages in the game. According to Bradley, the team’s adaptability was key to their success on both the powerplay and the penalty kill.

“Chatham definitely did a bit of homework, and they threw a couple of different powerplay looks at us,” Bradley said. “I thought Mike (Herman) and the guys who were killing penalties did a good job adjusting to what they were doing. Then, on the powerplay, we’ve been working on a couple of little things, and you can see the guys trying to execute it. We talked about how aggressive they are in-zone, and we had to make sure we had outs and support. I thought they did a great job of that, too.”

McAuley’s goal held up as the game-winner, and Colquhoun finished the game with 26 saves in the win.

Bradley described the team’s focal points entering the 2026 portion of the season, noting the team is trying to refine their version of playoff-style hockey.

“It’s just a continuation of what we’ve been doing prior to the Christmas break. Now that we’ve got 20 games left, there’s going to be a lot of review, trying to get ramped up for the playoffs and making sure we’re dialled in everywhere, we’re hard to play against and our systems are well-rounded.

“Today, for example, we’re putting some time in on the back-check,” Bradley added ahead of the team’s Sunday practice. “I think our effort on the back-check is great, but we just want to sort out everyone’s responsibilities and the structure of our back-check. But other than that, we’re not allowing a lot. We’re starting to score more goals. Our special teams are good. There is a lot of good, we just can’t take our foot off any pedal.”