Mitch Brown (Patriot/Corrpak Sprint 10) & the Brantford Eagles-Cherrey Cup

[Mike Lindsay]

congrates to Mitch and the Brantford Eagles, coached by former Pittsburg Penguins Captain Mike Bullard, who beat the Stratford Cullitons for the Ontario Junior B Mid-Western Conference Championship (The Cherrey Cup). Brantford now face the London Nationals and St. Catharines Falcons in a round robin tournament for the Provincial Championship (Sutherland Cup). For our forum members here, our friend Tommy Goudge (aka Tommy Salami) is the arena announcer for the London Nats.
 Brantford had some excellent over agers they received from OHL teams-Trent Hawke played previously for the Barrie Colts,  Mike Appio played for Owen Sound Attack, and Goalie Bryce O'Hagan came from the Peterborough Petes.
 Schedule is just being formatted (St. Catharines is affected by the OHL playoffs) so check the Brantford Expositor website or www.twitter/expbsmiley.com for tournament dates.
 Mitch is small at 5'5" but I noticed in four games I attended that Bullard would send him out to take crucial faceoffs (and he usually won)

[Mike Lindsay]

sorry meant Brett Appio above

[Mike Lindsay]

so far so good-in the round robin, they beat St. Catharines at home (on the 14th) and the Nationals in London last night (April 15) in triple over time!. Final two games are vs London (in Brantford Thurs April 19) and in St. Catharines on Saturday April 21. Merrittville has a practice starting at 5pm (after teching cars almost all afternoon) so it would be easy to take in the game in St. Catharines about ten minutes away.
(The Sutherland Cup format is that the top two from the Round Robin will play a best of 7 for the Ontario championship) (Saturday's game was originally scheduled for Sunday but moved up-perhaps an OHL conflict)

[Mike Lindsay]

Mitch's team came through and won 3-2 giving them the top seed & home advantage in the finale.  On Saturday, to complete the round robin, Brantford play in St. Kitts. Meaningless game, sort of, for Brantford but for St. Catharines, they have to win to lock up second or if they lose, they have to play London in a additional game with the winner going on to play Brantford. Brantford coach Mike Bullard says they intend to win as they want whomever they meet to be tired.
 It was nice to meet and talk to Tommy Goudge at the game last night.

[Mike Lindsay]

Brantford won and forced St. Kitts to play London in a tie breaker. St. Kitts won the sudden death game (sorry Tommy) and the best of seven game series starts tonight (Thursday) in Brantford. Using Saturdays game in St. Kitts as an option in case Merrittville runs into weather problems

[Mike Lindsay]

unfortunately, they lost the Sutherland Cup 4 games to two to the powerful St. Catharines Falcons. Won the first two but just came up cold at the wrong time. I believe Mitch is only 18 or 19 and still has two years eligibility in Jr. Bring on the sprint car. And younger brother Jacob (Jacob Harold Brown) has moved up to thunder cars from mini stocks