CRUSHER Devin Mantha picks his way through the Huntsville defenders in OPJHL action in Orangeville this past Saturday. Photo/MIKE MALONEY Orangeville Crushers officially kicked off their 2007- 08 hockey campaign this past weekend when they played host to the Huntsville Otters. Although the end result was not exactly what they had hoped for, the Crushers put in a solid performance on the way to being handed a 3-1 loss by the Otters.

Orangeville came into the game riding a wave of enthusiasm after a successful preseason campaign and brought the crowd to their feet, opening the scoring midway through the first.

Showing great second effort along the boards to keep the puck in Huntsville's end, forwards Matt Crilly and Norm Ezekiel teamed up to feed the puck to Nicholas Hewko who fired it home to give Orangeville a 1-0 lead that they carried into the second period.

Penalty trouble proved costly against the largely veteran Huntsville squad. With Nikolas Matwijszyn serving two for tripping, Otters' Brad Williams managed to get one past Crusher cager Matt Kinsella four minutes into the second followed just over one minute later by a single, off the stick of Brock Owen to take the lead.

Jake Yard would make it 3-1 in favour of Huntsville with another power-play marker 10:09 into the second and the score stayed for the remainder of the game.

For Orangeville coach Dale Hawerchuk, the end result was disappointing but overall, he was encouraged by the play of his team, "I thought we played pretty good."

He went on to comment on a good start in the first but acknowledged a lull through the second and penalties which got them in trouble.

Noting that Huntsville is definitely a more seasoned team and you have to expect them to play better early in the year and they are going to be a bit quicker taking advantages such as powerplay opportunities when presented to them.

Considering that all teams have some opening night jitters, especially before the home crowd, Hawerchuk knows that the early games are important not just on the score sheet but for confidence as well. "Right now, two things we need to work on are conditioning and confidence," he says going on to add the skill is there but they still need to come together more as a team and start trusting in each other, something that will come with time.

And over the next few nights they will have a lot of time on the ice to do that. Besides practice, the Crushers are off to Newmarket Wednesday night for a date with the Redmen (results unavailable at press time) then it's up to Huntsville for a rematch with the Otters on Friday night.