The Tweed Oil Kings opened their 2025-26 regular season schedule in the Northern Premier Hockey League in victorious fashion as all three Quinte Region clubs are now underway in the Eastern Ontario Sr. A shinny circuit.
Tweed topped the Deseronto Bulldogs 4-3 Saturday at Deseronto in a contest that saw the two teams each dominate a separate 20-minute segment of the game. Tweed took a 1-0 first-period lead to the dressing room, then watched Deseronto score three unanswered goals in the second stanza. Kings did likewise in the third period, outgunning the Bulldogs 3-0 in the final 20 minutes to secure a 4-3 triumph.
Mitchell Burke (2), Isaac Brown and Elijah Brahaney supplied the Tweed goals while Kyle Gaskin was top playmaker for the Kings with three assists. Jordon Cannons, Alex Yuill and Nathan Hudgin scored for the Bulldogs.
Tweed tender Matt Loveys was a busy man in the Tweed cage, turning aside 54 enemy shots. His counterpart in goal for Deseronto, Corey Kuypers, stopped 44 pucks.
Deseronto is 1-and-1 to start the season.
Meanwhile, the expansion County Royals started their inaugural Sr. A campaign with consecutive wins over the relocated Tamworth Sabres (formerly the Frontenac Phantoms), then got blasted, 10-3, by the visiting Smiths Falls Rideaus in the PEC squad’s home opener in Wellington. Three games into the season, Calvin Wojtaszak leads the fledgling Royals with three goals and one assist for four points.
ON DECK: Tamworth at Tweed, Friday at 7:30 p.m.; Deseronto at Lindsay, Saturday at 7:30 p.m.; County Royals at Durham, Saturday at 8:30 p.m.
(PAUL SVOBODA)
