Marco Sladoje has never felt so relieved before, and the same is probably true for all of his teammates on the Lakeshore Canadiens and the Wheatley Omstead Sharks.
As 12:30 a.m. passed, she was both physically and mentally tired. Thursday at the Wheatley Area Arena, Sladoje, who is 19 years old, stole the puck from Sharks goalie Ethan Handley and scored. That made the score 5-4 for Lakeshore, and Wheatley’s season was over. It was the longest game in the history of the Provincial Junior Hockey League.
Lakeshore won the best-of-seven Stobbs Division semifinal 4 games to 2 in the PJHL. The Junior C league has 60 teams from cities and towns all over Ontario.
“I felt so much better. I just raised my hands and my head “Sladoje said this about the party after the game, which started at 7:27 p.m. Wednesday and ended at 12:45 a.m. Thursday. “And the team just came up to me. It was a big relief and a big thrill at the same time. The small amount of adrenaline you still have was still pumping. It was definitely a great time in my hockey career.”
There will be 11 tough playoff hockey periods in less than 24 hours. That is amazing.– Mark Seguin, Lakeshore Canadiens’ general manager
Belle River native Sladoje said he has played in overtime games before, but nothing like this. Usually, there are three 20-minute periods, but in the playoffs, if there is a tie, there are 20-minute overtime periods until someone wins.
To give you an idea of how long that is, a typical hockey game lasts between 90 and 120 minutes, including breaks for penalties, offsides, player injuries, and other things. Lakeshore and Wheatley played together for more than five hours.
“It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but I won’t say it was the worst. But it was worse than any bag skater or any other physical test we had to take.” Sladoje said. “I think everyone was taking about 10- to 15-second shifts at one point. Guys were going down everywhere. It wasn’t easy. It definitely wasn’t easy.”
Sladoje joked that at one point they were wondering how much longer they could play.
“There was a lot of leg cramping. But no one wanted to ice their legs because you shouldn’t do that during a game. A lot of the guys were putting on BioFreeze [pain rub] to keep going.”
Sladoje said that during the breaks, the players drank a lot of water and ate a lot of protein to keep going.
192 shots late
Mark Seguin, the general manager of the Canadiens, said that the team was running out of supplies because they were on the road.
Seguin said, “You don’t think about eight periods of hockey.” “We bring a lot of food and drinks for the players, like Gatorade, water, bananas, protein bars, and other snacks. But in town, the stores close at 11 p.m. At one point, we had nothing but water left.”
During Game 6, Nicholas Bolton, the goalie for the Canadiens, stopped 96 of 100 shots, while Handley stopped 87 of 92 shots.
“People forget that these two teams played the night before in Lakeshore,” said Seguin. “So there will be 11 hard playoff hockey periods in less than 24 hours. That’s incredible.”