SAULT STE. MARIE – The Sarnia Sting suffered another heart-breaking loss Wednesday night. Vern Cooper’s goal 28 seconds into overtime gave the Greyhounds a come-from-behind 5-4 win over the Sting before 4,298 fans at the Essar Centre.

Sarnia did pick up a point as their overall record is now 14-24-2-1 in the Ontario Hockey League.

Sting head coach Dave MacQueen  felt his team deserved a better fate.

“Sault Ste. Marie did exactly what we expected. They come out hard. We got down 2-0, but were able to come back. But we gave them two of their five goals. I thought their first goal was offside, our goalie handed them the puck on their third goal while on the winning goal, two of our veteran defencemen got outmuscled behind our net. That’s unacceptable.”

He added, “in general we played hard. I like the way we responded after our last game with London. On a positive note that’s two of our last three games where we scored two or more goals. I didn’t think they outplayed us.”

The Greyhounds scored the only goal of the opening period at 15:29 when Carson Dubchak scored on a slapshot from the top of the face-off circle. They went up 2-0 two minutes into period two when Vern Cooper wristed a shot over the shoulder of Sting goalie Adam Courchaine.

Sarnia fought back with a pair of goals to tie the game. J.C. Campagna scored his fifth of the year at 6:47 banging home a rebound while Brett Ritchie tied the game at 12:44 on a breakaway as he desposited a backhand into the top of the net. It was his sixth of the year.

The Greyhounds regained the lead at 15:15 on a gift by Courchaine. The Sting goalie tried to shoot the puck in front of the net, but it was intercepted by Brett Thompson who had a wide open net.

Sarnia tied the game 40 seconds later when Joe Rogalski recorded his fourth goal of the year on a high shot from the right point. Another defenceman, Anthony Donati gave the Sting their first lead at 19:16 when he knocked in his own rebound for his second of the year.

The Greyhounds tied the game at 15:09 of period three on the power play when Thompson got his second of the night deflecting home a point drive.

The only shot of overtime came when Cooper beat Courchaine with a wraparound on a backhand.

The Greyhounds held a 37-27 edge in shots on goal. Robin Lehner was the winning goalie. Sarnia was one-for-two on the power play and the Greyhounds one-for-three.

Ritchie re-joined the Sting after missing three games. Ritchie played for Team Ontario at the World Under-17 Hockey Championships in Timmins. Team Ontario lost 2-1 to the United States in the final.

“Obviously it was a honour to play on the team,” said Ritchie. “It’s been a goal of mine since midget. There was great competition with players your own age from the rest of the world. I also got to play with five guys who were team-mates of mine throughout minor hockey in the Toronto Marlies organization.”

With exhibition games, Ritchie played a total of six games. In five tournament games Ritchie had two goals and two assists. Both goals came in the semi-final win over Team Russia. He played on a line with Carter Sandlak (Guelph Storm) and David Broll (Erie Otters).

“The coach of Team Ontario wanted us to play physical during the tournament as we are all over six feet and that’s what we did,” said Ritchie.

Ritchie added, “Obviously the final game didn’t turn out the way we wanted it to. I thought we played well as a team and outplayed them. Their goalie played over his head and the bounces didn’t go our way.”

Ritchie felt the event was good for his development.

“It was a little different than the OHL as all the players are the same age. When you play against guys your same age, you see where you are at. I think the tournament helped me with my confidence and hopefully it will help me in the second half of the season.”

Coach MacQueen agreed.

“It was a great thing for Brett to play with his peers and do well. I’ve seen other guys who were in this event come back full of confidence and be ready to take the next step in the second half.”

MacQueen added, “this year through no fault of his own, Brett has been put in situations where it has been easy to fail playing against 19 and 20 year-olds on most nights. That’s not the ideal situation, but if anything it has given him lots of experience and what it takes to be successful in our league.”

The Sting returns to action Saturday when they host the Windsor Spitfires at 7:35 p.m. at the RBC Centre. The two teams meet again Sunday afternoon in Windsor.



- Thompson was first star while Ritchie, who also had an assist, was second star and Dubchak third star.

- MacQueen was the only coach behind the Sting bench for last night’s game. Greg Walters was serving the first of a two-game suspension while Tim Bacik and Derek DiMuzio were not available.

- Sarnia had a full roster of 20 players. Defenceman Anton Zupancic was called up from the Sarnia Legionnaires. Not dressed were Daniel Broussard (shoulder), Ron Soucie (shoulder) and Kale Kerbashian (concussion). Forward Miroslav Preisinger played with a cast on his right hand. He blocked a shot a couple of weeks ago, but the initial x-ray were negative. But a week ago further tests revealed a small bone break. Forward Brett Appio blocked a shot in the first period and did not return.

- Last night’s game was the fifth meeting between the two clubs. They meet three more times including next Friday in Sarnia.

- The OHL trade deadline is Monday at 12 noon.

“From our prospective it’s quiet,” said MacQueen. “I’ve talked to several other general managers and there’s not a lot going on right now. We are working the phones and if there are deals out there, we are exploring them.”

MacQueen says he would like to make a couple of deals.

“But first we are not going to give players away. We want to make fair deals. But we also know we need to re-coup some of the assets we’ve lost over the past couple of years. We need to get a couple of draft picks back and maybe a young player or two.”

He added, “we didn’t move any players last year at the deadline and as a result, it left us behind. We didn’t get all our picks back we lost in previous deals. We got some back in the (Gregg) Sutch deal. But this year is not a seller’s market. There are some top-end players available, but I don’t know who is going to take them and give a lot.”

MacQueen was somewhat surprised when Windsor, the league’s top team and defending Memorial Cup champions, pulled off a seven-player deal with Belleville.

“When you are close to winning back-to-back titles, you don’t take any chances. That’s why Windsor did what they had to do. You have to give up something to get something and they also had the assets to do so. At the end of the day it’s a win-win situation for both teams as Belleville got some young players and draft picks.”

- MacQueen spent Christmas in Florida with his family. He attended a Tampa Bay Lightning game to watch ex-Sting star Steven Stamkos. After the game Stamkos presented MacQueen with a $3,000 cheque to upgrade video equipment in the Sting locker room.

“We had talked about Steven doing something for the team awhile back and we came up with something,” said MacQueen. “Steven appreciated what the Sting organization did for him the two year he was with us and wanted to give something back to the team. It’s a wonderful gesture.”

Stamkos was the first overall OHL pick by the Sting in 2006 and two years ago was the first overall pick in the NHL by the Lightning.