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Junior hockey returns to Stouffville this fall following a 19-month COVID-19 timeout.

The Stouffville Spirit’s home opener goes Saturday, Oct. 2, at 7:30 p.m. at the Stouffville Arena.

The team was to honour the Heroes of the Pandemic during a pre-game ceremony. First responders, health care workers, vaccine clinic officials and frontline retail employees were invited.

The game will go on but the pre-game honours were postponed this week, after attendance limits at the Stouffville Arena were recently dropped from 500 fans early in the preseason to 100.

The schedule is a full 54 games but begins four weeks later than non-COVID seasons. That means some busy weeks between now and March 5 when the season ends.

Most home games are on Saturdays, including the first four in October.

Full schedule: CLICK HERE

 “The kids are excited to play and the coaches, staff and organization are excited to get back,” said new Spirit head coach Scott Donato. “We have to get back to the fundamentals to understand how we’re going to play.”

Donato brings experience to Stouffville from Jr. A  (Peterborough, Lindsay, Pickering) and AAA minor hockey levels.

The coach favours a defensive-minded style that will capitalize on mistakes “but more importantly one driven by work ethic.”

It’s been awhile. The last game played?

The Stouffville Spirit was riding high after winning a Game 7 in Collingwood and advancing to the second round of the Ontario Junior hockey League playoffs on March 9, 2020.

The 25-year-old franchise, which won an OJHL championship in 2012, had just recorded one of its finest regular seasons (27-20-4-3) in recent memory.

The OJHL quarterfinals the Spirit were to enter would never be played.

The team has been dormant ever since, all thanks to the pandemic.

General Manager/Co-owner Kenny Burrows and staff assembled a roster for the 2020-21 OJHL season, but it never materialized.

Now, the Spirit is back.

A Development Camp for aspiring Jr. A players was held at the Stouffville Clippers Sports Complex during the Labour Day weekend.

Three days later, the team opened its Main Camp with 35 players at the freshly re-opened Stouffville Arena. Six preseason games were on the schedule, half at home.

The roster includes now-veteran returnees from that young team that made the OJHL’s elite eight 18 months ago: Joe Kennedy, Pearce Baker, Bailey Kirwin and Anthony Lamanna.

Popular team captain Connor May is entering his second year of NCAA play at Adrian College in Michigan. Leading goal scorer Luke Strickland was at camp with Omaha of the United States Hockey League. Rookie sensation Andre Anania will play for the Sudbury Wolves, the Spirit’s Ontario Hockey League affiliate.

‘Veterans’ – junior players are 16 to 20 years old – acquired included big defenceman Cale Cavallin and forward Braeden McKinnon, both from the Aurora Tigers, and speedy Uxbridge product Carson Whitson from the Whitby Fury, now the Haliburton County Huskies.

Newcomers signed included a trio of Stouffville residents: goalie Cam Smith and forwards Coulson Pitre and 6-foot, 7-inch Christian Holden. (Pitre signed with Flint of the Ontario Hockey League last month and was expected to stick there.)

The roster was still in flux during the last week for September with some players still at OHL camps.