As part of my role as team statistician for the Sudbury Wolves, my job description includes the preparation of weekly media notes, featuring various tidbits of information regarding upcoming games.

While these notes have generally been confined to circulating among media types and club officials, it seemed likely that fans of the local OHL team might also have an interest in the odds and ends that I might come across on a weekly basis.

With just one game on their schedule this week – Friday night at home versus the Niagara Ice Dogs – and plenty of chatter around the Wolves regarding their franchise-tying four game winning streak to open the 2026-2027 season, this seemed like an ideal time to expand on some of those years when the “Ws” have come in bunches for The Pack.

For purposes of clarification, the only other time the Wolves opened a season with four straight victories was the 1994-1995 campaign when their run included: a 3-0 home ice win over the London Knights (Sept 23rd, 1994); a 7-4 home ice win over the Peterborough Petes (Sept 25th, 1994); a 5-2 road win over the Ottawa 67’s (Sept 30th, 1994) and a 5-2 road win over the North Bay Centennials (Oct 2nd, 1994).

Interestingly enough, the team came awfully darned close to making it five straight, playing to a 5-5 overtime tie with the Kingston Frontenacs on October 4th (1994) in Sudbury before losing a 6-1 contest to the Owen Sound Platers on October 7th (1994), also at home. Ironically, the Wolves finished with the second best record in the entire OHL that year (43-17-6), behind only the Guelph Storm (47-14-5) while Owen Sound was 12th of 16 teams at 22-48-6.

While a four-game win streak to start the season is admittedly quite modest, the Wolves can hang their hats on more robust sequences once league play is actually up and running. The best of the lot is a 13-game winning streak that took place during the 1999-2000 campaign, a red-hot stretch that was launched with a 4-0 home ice win over the Rouyn-Noranda Huskies.

Mike Gorman turned aside all 30 shots that he faced between the pipes that night while Norm Milley, Derek Mackenzie, Taylor Pyatt and Mike Vaillancourt handled the scoring. Taking full advantage of a stretch that featured eight home games in a span of 13 encounters, the Sudbury lads complete their home and home sweep of the Huskies, did likewise with the Toronto St Michaels Majors and managed to rack up three victories over the North Bay Centennials.

Their 13th win came opposite the Mississauga Ice Dogs on March 17th, a 6-4 triumph as Taylor Pyatt and Jason Jaspers each recorded a goal and three assists. The Barrie Colts ended the Sudbury string of success, beating the Wolves 5-1 before coach Bert Templeton and company closed out regular season play with a 6-3 road win over Mississauga.

While the Wolves have won 12 straight at home on three different occasions, it was the year following their 13 game (home and road) run that the team established a record for most consecutive victories on the road with seven. On February 18th (2001), Fedor Federov, Jason Jaspers and Dan Jancevski scored for Sudbury as the Wolves bested the London Knights 3-1 in London – with future Wolf Dennis Wideman netting the only goal for the Knights.

Following up with wins in Peterborough, Kingston, Ottawa, Sault Ste Marie, Toronto and Oshawa, the Wolves actually managed to forge this memorable sequence while in the midst of an eight game road stand as the Sudbury Arena played host to the 2001 Scotties Tournament of Hearts in late February that year.

For the second straight season, the Sudbury Wolves and Niagara Ice Dogs will meet only four times – as opposed to their traditional six game set - accommodating the home and home Sudbury matchups with the Rouyn-Noranda Huskies. The Wolves snapped a three game losing skid to the Ice Dogs last February, closing out their season series at home with a 6-2 win in a penalty-filled affair as Jan Chovan paced the offense for the homeside with a hat trick.

Despite dropping three of four head to head battles with Niagara last year, the local juniors have still managed to walk away with bragging rights in more years than not – 11 series wins versus nine series losses. Speaking of impressive win streaks, the Wolves managed to beat the then Mississauga Ice Dogs 12 straight times between November of 1998 and March of 2000.

Yet for all of the success that Sudbury has enjoyed in this particular matchup, the team have only blanked the Ice Dogs in northern Ontario on one occasion – November 8th, 2019. Christian Purboo was the Sudbury goalie of record in a 6-0 whitewashing of the visitors from Niagara, with six different players bulging the twine for the Woofers: Kalle Loponen; Owen Robinson; Quinton Byfield; Nolan Hutcheson; Shane Bulitka; David Levin.