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The St. Michael’s Buzzers came into their final game of the regular season against the Orangeville Crushers with several things on the line, not the least of which was locking up seventh place and a first round playoff match up against the Newmarket Hurricanes. Additionally, from an individual perspective, Dan Ciampini, with thirty nine goals, sat within striking distance of the Buzzers all-time single season goals record of forty one set by Eric Rubino during the 2007-2008 season. Lastly, with twenty nine goals, Lucas Lessio needed one more marker to hit the thirty goal plateau, an impressive feat for a first year player.

When all was said and done, the Buzzers took care of all those goals and more as they skated to a 10-3 victory, arguably one of their most complete efforts of the season.

After being somewhat critical of his team’s effort despite a 6-3 victory over the Dixie Beehives on Friday night, Buzzers’ Head Coach Mike DePellegrin was much more impressed with what he saw against the Crushers.

“This kind of effort we showed this afternoon is necessary for us to compete against a second place team like Newmarket in the playoffs,” said the head coach. “Whether we ended up with Newmarket or the Burlington Cougars, we needed to come out of this game showing this kind of effort and this will help us compete going forward.”

Dan Ciampini got the Buzzers off to an early start, scoring at the 2:55 mark of the first period when he tapped in a loose puck at the side of the net. At the 10:01 mark, Ciampini tied the Eric Rubino’s single season goals mark of forty one with his second of the game – a shorthanded marker – when he stripped an Orangeville defenseman of the puck just inside the Crushers’ blueline before stepping in and beating netminder Nick Gigone.

While setting the record most certainly was on Ciampini’s mind, a good start to ensure a victory, he said, was more important.

“At the beginning of the game, it was matter of just making sure we get a “W” and in the speech before the game, I spoke to the guys and said, ‘If you guys are looking for somebody, just jump on my back and I’ll carry it,’” said Ciampini. “It was a huge game for us, it was crucial; I saw we had some of the North York Rangers’ guys here because they were upset about their loss last night not being able to clinch seventh place. So I tried to do my best to get our team over the hump early on.”

Jesse Beamish scored at the 13:51 of the second period, putting the Buzzers comfortably ahead by a score of 3-0 but Cody Britton responded less than a minute later to get the Crushers on the board. At 16:37, Beamish notched his second goal of the period – a power play marker this time - to restore the three goal lead.

The two goals left Beamish with twenty two on the season, an improvement of eighteen from his rookie season in 2008/2009.

Once again though, Britton brought Orangeville back to within two goals when he jammed in a loose puck at the side of the net during a goal mouth scramble at 18:14.

As Orangeville started to gain some traction towards the end of the second period, St. Michael’s quickly reassumed control of the game with a solid start to the third period scoring twice in the first 5:09. Mike Hawkrigg scored his first of the game after stepping into a cleanly won faceoff by Dan Cameron to put the Buzzers back up by three. Later on the power play at 5:09, Anthony Rizzo collected his fourteenth of the season to grow the lead to four goals.

Rizzo’s goal spelled the end of the game for Nick Gigone as Talon Dorazio came on in relief but did not fare much better allowing four goals on eight shots.
At the 11:40 mark, Hawkrigg continued the scoring, notching his second of the game when he buried a rebound at the side of the net produced by a Blake Barbieri shot.

Cody Britton – easily the best Crusher in the game - completed his hat trick effort on the power play at the 13:22 mark but the St. Michael’s offense kept rolling from there.

Dan Ciampini wrote his name in the history books at the 14:14 mark of the third period when he beat Dorazio with a wrist shot from the top of the slot, giving him a hat trick and sole possession of the Buzzers all-time single season goals record.

Following the game Ciampini admitted, the record had been in his mind for the past few weeks.

“I was going nuts but it was just incredible,” said Ciampini. “The amount of time and effort I put into this season, it’s so special. I had my family here and a lot of people watching and it was just indescribable. Just to be in the record books for an organization like this, it really is incredible to me.”

Not unlike the previous holder of the record, Eric Rubino, who responded with a tremendous season to set the record following a serious injury that forced him to miss most of the 2006-2007 season, Dan Ciampini missed the second half of the 2008-2009 season recovering from an injury of his own. Looking back to where he was a year ago at this time, Ciampini explained he never saw this coming.

“No, never in my mind did I think of this,” explained Ciampini. “I thought I’d be relied on for a big role but never did I think I’d carry the team as far as we have. With the help of the other guys, it was just a solid effort tonight and we’re going into the playoffs on a high note. I try to contribute every night like I have to and I do my best and try to give it one hundred per cent and just hope the best comes out of it.”

DePellegrin was pleased to see Ciampini set the record after having put in a lot of work to get back to his best after the injury last season.

“I’m very proud of Dan; he’s been pushing all year to be a leader on this hockey team which he has accomplished very well and then it got close to the end of the season to break the record and I know that meant a lot to him,” said DePellegrin. “We’re very proud of him, the whole organization is proud of him.”

Just forty five seconds following Ciampini’s historic marker, Alex Bezerra fed a point shot through a maze of legs in the slot for his second goal of the year. At the 18:52 mark, Lucas Lessio scored his thirtieth goal of the season on a two on one with Mike Neville.

“I had a lot of help from my line mates throughout the year,” said Lessio, on scoring thirty goals in his rookie season. “They made it a lot easier for me, it’s a nice milestone and I’m happy with it.”

“It was a two on one and the pass was being taken away, my first priority there was goal because I knew thirty goals was on the line,” continued Lessio. “My dad said before the game, ‘Thirty is a big number; it’s a nice number to have. Just think you can say you scored thirty rather than twenty nine,’ so I just pulled the goalie one way and put it in.”

For DePellegrin, the challenge now is to convince his team to show the kind of effort they showed against Orangeville in every game from now on.

“The message comes from the coaching staff and it also comes from the veterans on the team that the consistency that we displayed this afternoon – we kind of saved our best effort for game fifty of the regular season – is something that we can do and we need to do for three periods,” said DePellegrin. “To be honest, that’s the only way we’ll be able to compete in the playoffs.”

The playoffs will begin for St. Michael’s on Thursday night against the Newmarket Hurricanes at the Ray Twinney Recreational Complex.

“We had a bit of a struggle with them at the beginning of the season but at the end of the season we kind of got it under wraps and seemed to solve them in our last game against them,” said Ciampini. “They’ve got a good shutdown line but myself, Lessio and Beamish are pretty prepared for anything they’ve got coming at us.”