ESTEVAN - Friday's second day of the Centennial Cup national junior A hockey championship, presented by Tim Hortons, opened with games involving teams in Group B.
The Manitoba Junior Hockey League champions, the Dauphin Kings, edged the Central Canadian Hockey League's Ottawa Junior A Senators 2-1 in the tournament opener for both teams.
Philippe Jacques opened the scoring for Ottawa with 24 seconds to play in the opening period.
Dauphin replied with two goals in the second. Luke Morris tied the game 6:06 into the middle frame, and Nakodan Greyeyes gave the Kings the lead with a power-play goal less than seven minutes later.
Ottawa had chances to tie in the third, but couldn't beat the Kings' Carson Cherepak, who made 31 saves on the day, 15 of them coming in the first period alone.
William Desmarais made 22 saves for Ottawa.
In the second game, the Summerside Western Capitals of the Maritime Hockey League knocked off the Soo Thunderbirds of the Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League 4-1.
Sid McNeill's power-play goal with 7:51 to play in the first period opened the scoring for Summerside. It appeared the opening frame would finish as a 1-0 game, but Youssef Chaouachi scored with 76 seconds to play to tie the game. Landon Clow responded 29 seconds later for Summerside for a 2-1 advantage.
The Capitals would add to the lead on power play goals by Jacob Stewart and Josh MacDonald in th opening three minutes of the second period.
Neither team scored the rest of the way, although Summerside carried the play, outshooting the Thunderbirds 44-14. Noah Zeppa stopped 40 of the 44 shots he faced for the Thunderbirds, while Felix-Anthony Ethier stopped 14 of 15 shots in goal for the Capitals.
Summerside was playing their first game of the tournament. The Thunderbirds were in their second, and have dropped both games.
The second day will wrap up with a game between the host Estevan Bruins, who won the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League championship, and College Francais de Longueuil. Longueuil won the Ligue de Hockey Junior AAA du Quebec this season.
That game will start at 7:30 p.m. Opening ceremonies will occur before the game.
The Mercury will have updates from the Bruins game during the contest.
