Barry Wright/The Independent

The Alvinston Killer Bees of the Northern Premier Hockey League has re-signed a half dozen of its veterans for the 2026-27 season.

Fan favourite Alex Cunningham is returning for his sixth season with the franchise while Bayly Fryfogle is back for season number five.  Jacob Chantler and Jamie Schaafsma will suit up for their fourth and third season respectively while Sheldon Thompson and Brandon Couto have both re-signed for a second season with the Bees.

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The top two scorers for the Mooretown Flags last season have both re-signed for the 2026-27 PJHL campaign.

Jace Dupuis had 22 goals and 57 points in 42 games while Carson Crawford led the Flags with 28 regular season goals, including 11 on the power play.

The team has also signed Brayden Hogan, Jack Baerg, Geremia Nappi, Ryan Vidler, Mitchell Stack, Noah Waybrant, Lucas Ross and Casey Schouten.

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As usual, the main home date for the Sarnia Legionnaires will be Thursday nights this season.

The Greater Ontario Hockey League announced the league schedule last week, which included 18 home games for Sarnia on Thursday night along with five games on Saturday, and one each on Friday and Family Day Monday.

Sarnia’s season opener will be Thursday, September 17 against the Komoka Kings at Pat Stapleton Arena. Game time this season has been moved up from 7:10 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Meantime, Strathroy’s primary home date remains Saturday night at 7:30 p.m. and the lion’s share of home games for Chatham will again be on Sunday night at 7 p.m.

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It is quite an honour for Dylan Whitbread.  He was chosen as the strength and conditioning coach by Hockey Canada for the women’s national team under-18 selection camp in Richmond, B.C.

Camp ran last week and is followed this week by three exhibition games against Team USA.

Whitbread, a Plympton-Wyoming native and St. Clair (now Great Lakes) grad, is the manager of strength and conditioning at McMaster University in Hamilton.

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Jake Grimes is the new head coach of the Niagara IceDogs of the Ontario Hockey League. He replaces Grand Bend’s Krys Barch who was let go after just one season on the job.

Grimes is a former head coach of the Petrolia Jets more than two decades ago in the 2003-04 campaign.

Grimes was part of the coaching ranks with the league champion Guelph Storm in 2019 and the Memorial Cup champion Saginaw Spirit in 2024.

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Lyncoln Peters is heading to Grace Christian University in Grand Rapids, Michigan to continue his academic and athletic career.

The Bright’s Grove outfielder and Northern grad is currently playing in the Wyoming Wranglers system.

The Grace Christian University Tigers were 27-25 last season and reached the National Christian College Athletic Association (NCCAA) regional playoffs for the first time in school history.

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After Petrolia’s Kingston Burns and Sam Dezort each scored in the final ten seconds of regulation time to send the recent OLA under-22 quarterfinal game into overtime, the St. Catharines Athletics scored in the fourth period for a 7-6 victory.

Oil Springs’ Jack Stephenson scored twice for the Pacers in the elimination contest.

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Fresh off her victory at the Ontario Junior Girls’ golf tournament, Andrea Lai won the girls’ under-19 individual title at the Ontario Summer Games in Waterloo.

The St. Thomas-based golfer had rounds of 72 and 68 for the victory.

Lai, Narisse Daye and Sofia Rocca of the Sarnia Golf and Curling Club won the team gold medal for the Lambton Junior Golf Tour. Daye was second in individual scoring and Rocca was 11th.

Kassandra Rombouts, from Florence and an LCCVI graduate from Maple City in Chatham was sixth individually. Her Unico Primo tour team from Windsor-Chatham was third.