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Colts were rolling until Thursday night
Nova Scotia Provincial Junior Champions, the Capstone Colts lost their first game at the 2025 Don Johnson Memorial Cup Championship Tournament Thursday evening, 4-3 to the Kent Koyotes from New Brunswick.
Kent jumped in front 2-0 after twenty minutes before Liam Higgins brought the Colts back to within a goal at 2-1 entering the third. The third was not a great start for the Colts as they allowed New Brunswick a pair of goals to fall behind 4-1 before the Colts rallied with a pair of goals from Camden McKenzie and Finn Merritt with his third of the tournament with only two seconds left in regulation. The win puts Kent in first place at 3-0-0 for 9 points and the Colts in second place at 2-1-0 for 6 points entering the final day of round-robin play. The Colts did outshoot the Koytes 28-23.
Colts 6 Antigonish 3
It was less than a week ago when the Colts eliminated the Antigonish Bulldogs in six games for the Nova Scotia Junior Championship. In their round-robin game at the Don Johnson Thursday, the Colts won again, this time 6-3 despite being outshot by the Bulldogs 27-26.
Owen O’Donnell for the Colts and Will Normandeau for Antigonish traded goals in the first period before Daniel Chaisson put Antigonish in front 2-1 in the second. The Colts however came back with a pair of markers from O’Donnell again and Matthew Jessome. to lead 3-2 after forty minutes.
The Colts did not slow down in the second as Finn Merritt and Luke MacPhee tallied to to put the Colts in front 5-2 Jake Prince scored for Antigonish to bring them back to within a pair but O’Donnell scored his third of the game to make the final 6-3 Colts. O’Donnell was a late season signing by the Colts and had previously been selected third overall in the Maritime Junior Hockey League Draft by Yarmouth as well as being a selection of Rouyon-Noranda of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League and has 6 points in three games in the Don Johnson.
In play Friday, the Bulldogs will play twice in two critical games to decide playoff positioning for the playoff games Saturday and Sunday. The Bulldogs play the Kensington Vipers at 12 noon and then go against the 3-0-0 Kent Koyotes Friday night at 7:30 p.m. The Colts meanwhile will play their final round robin game Friday in a 4:00 p.m. start against the Cap Pele Knights from New Brunswick.
The playoff positioning is still wide open even for the 0-3-0 Prince Edward Island team as numerous Don Johnson Tournaments over the years have boiled down to a team having scored one more goal in the round-robin. One only has to think back to the 2008 Don Johnson outside of Charlottetown in Sherwood when all five teams finished with identical records in the round-robin and playoff positioning was decided by goals for and goals allowed.
Incidentally, the Antigonish-Kensington game at 12 noon today will be a rematch of the last two Atlantic Championship Games in which the Bulldogs won both in Liverpool and Mount Pearl, Newfoundland.