Welland Native Leads NOJHL In Scoring

[Port hockey1]

Brayden Stortz reaches the century mark in points

By Bernd Franke, The Tribune
Friday, March 11, 2016 7:42:10 EST PM

Brayden Stortz will have 100 reasons to fondly remember his first season playing in the Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League once he finally hangs up his skates.

A goal and three assists in the final game of the regular season gave the Welland native and one-time Junior Canadians forward 100 points and the league scoring title.
Seeing action in all of the Kirkland Lake Gold Miners’ 54 games in league play, Strotz finished the campaign with 38 goals and 62 assists. He edged Hunter Aitchsion, who netted 50 goals and collected 49 assists in 53 games for the Cochrane Crunch, by one point in the scoring race.
Stortz knew the individual scoring championship was within race as the season started winding down.
“The past few games I kept slowly creeping up on the No. 1 spot in points,” the 20-year-old said, after Kirkland Lake closed out the season with a 6-1 road victory over the Timmins Rock.
“I knew it was possible. I just had to take it one game at a time.”
A possibility that he could reach the century mark in points in the high-scoring league occurred to Stortz just after the Christmas break.
“I knew Logan Fredricks was going to help me get there,” he said of a linemate, who went on to top the league with 51 goals and place third overall in scoring with 89 points.
While the points title was the first of his hockey career, the down-to-the-wire finish was not. In 2014-15, his second season with the Junior Canadians, Stortz finished one point ahead of Jack Fitzgerald, 42 to 41; to pace the B’s in points.
Rather than stay home and remain in the Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League for another season, Stortz ventured to northeastern Ontario to expand his hockey horizon.
He attempted a similar move at the beginning of 2014-15 when he accepted an offer to play in the heavily-recruited Alberta Junior Hockey League with the Brooks Bandits.
However, Stortz saw action in only three pre-season games with the Bandits before returning to Ontario when the Carleton Place Canadians of the Central Canada Hockey League acquired his playing rights.
His stay in the Ottawa Valley community of 9,800 also proved to be short-lived. Stortz barely had time to unpack his bags in Carleton Place when he was sent to the Kanata Lasers who turned around and traded his rights back to the Canadians.
It was that point that Strotz, tired of being bounced around, returned home and rejoined the Junior Canadians in mid-October.
“It was good hockey, but it was too much back and forth.” he said at the time. “I was tired of getting moved around.”
In comparison to the moves to western Canada and eastern Ontario, Stortz not only got to unpack his, he had time to hang them up and start feeling at home in a hockey home away from home.
“My time in KL and in the NOJHL have been great,” Stortz said. “I wouldn’t have wished to be anywhere else this season.”
“They treat everyone great in KL, from the fans to the town.”
He praised billets Denis and Natalie Perreault for making feel at home and taking the edge of any homesickness.
“They have taken me in with open arms and treat me like there own kid,” Stortz said. “They have made my northern experience very enjoyable so far.”
Strotz was able to focus on his playmaking despite the added responsibility of being a Gold Miners co-captain along with Brandon Wolfe.
“We both take accountability for everything that happens, on ice and off ice, but it helps to have such a great co-captain to take some weight off my shoulders,” the 5-foot-8, 170-pound Stortz said.
Gold Miners head coach Marc Lafleur had Stortz on his radar since watching the Wellander compete at a showcase in Toronto two years ago. He also received glowing reviews from former coaches, who praised the player’s offensive skills and work ethic.
“We knew he was a point-getter, highly offensive and someone with great offensive instincts,” Lafleur said.
Since the Gold Miners underwent a major overhaul during the off-season returning few veterans from last year’s team – “We decide to move in a different direction,” the coach said – Stortz didn’t arrive Kirkland Lake as a typical newcomer.
“Brayden came in with a lot of confidence. He actually came in as a veteran with two years experience in junior B,” Lafleur said. “He was a great teammate from the get-go.
“He was well-received by his teammates.”
So much so that Stortz was selected as a co-captain by the players, a recommendation that Lafleur endorsed.
“We like to get input from the players.”
By far the greatest difference Stortz has found competing in the NOJHL as opposed to playing close to home in the Golden Horseshoe Conference is the great distances between teams.
For the Gold Miners, the shortest road trip this season 110 kilometre, one way, to play the Iroquois Falls Eskis. Players were advised to bring along a good book – several, in fact – when the game at the end of a bus ride was against the Elliott Lake Vikings, 605 km one way; or Soo Thunderbirds, 580 kilometres one way.
“Last season in the GOJHL, my farthest travel was under an hour long, and this season my closest is over an hour long,” he said.
Getting a chance to be on the ice every day, rather than only twice a week for practices, has taken Stortz a long way in his development as a hockey player.
When he isn’t playing hockey, Stortz works at an explosives company along with three of his teammates on the Gold Miners.
In addition to winning the Jimmy Conners Memorial Trophy as the league’s scoring champ, Stortz was selected as a centre for the second all-star team.
He was selected a NOJHL player of the week and was selected to play for eastern Canada in an all-star game at Cornwall.
As Stortz was born in 1996 he was one more season of eligibility at the junior level.
BFranke@postmedia.com
Twitter: @TribSportsDesk

http://www.wellandtribune.ca/2016/03/11 ... -in-points

[Port hockey1]

Could've really used him in Welland this season.

Glad to see he's had so much success in the NOJHL. He's a great hockey player!