The London Knights cleared a major hurdle on their way to a potential history-making winning streak.
The Knights defeated the Plymouth Whalers 4-2 Saturday in Plymouth to run their winning streak to 23 games, the second longest in Ontario Hockey League history, in front of 3,657.
The Knights are chasing the Kitchener Rangers' OHL mark of 25 games set in 1983-84 and the 1973 Sorel Epeviers. Sorel is now the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles. The 25 wins in succession is also a Canadian Hockey League record.
Those records were set before there was overtime and shootouts in the leagues. If a game ended in regulation time in a tie, it remained a tie.
The Knights have won five games in either overtime or shootouts during their streak.
The Hull Olympiques have the second longest streak in CHL history at 24 done during the 1995-96 season.
Despite being only two games from tying the record, most everyone on the Knights claims they aren?t really thinking about it.
?I don?t talk about. The kids play one game at a time. The old clich?,? said Knights? coach Dale Hunter.
?We aren?t talking overly about it but really there?s not much mention of it,? said Ryan Rupert.
?I just go out and have some fun. You can?t worry about the streak. You just take it one game at a time,? said goaltender Jake Patterson.
And so it goes. Another win, another solid effort in a difficult building to play and another response to pressure that continues to build with the streak and the attention growing.
This night it was the Ruperts who turned the game around. Matt caught a puck in the mouth but still managed to score a goal while Ryan had a goal and an assist. After a tough beginning to the year Ryan is finding the points finally starting to come.
?Starting last week I had a couple of points, that was the turnaround, I think,? Ryan said. ?Now I find that I?m getting some points and producing, so maybe this is the turnaround that I need.?
The Knights began their streak Nov. 2 with a 4-3 win over Belleville Bulls at home. Their last loss was the night before in Windsor when they dropped a 6-3 contest to the Spitfires.
Going into Plymouth is by no means an easy task. The Whalers play a tough, physical game in a smaller rink.
But the team keeps getting all-out efforts from anyone and everyone wearing the Knights? jersey.
?I can?t even tell you how hard they are working,? Patterson said. ?It?s making my job real easy. Their work ethic is incredible. Keeping the shots to the outside for me, it?s making my job easy.?
Patterson was good on his own. He made the big saves when he needed to make them.
Forward Kyle Platzer went back to play on the blueline and he finished a plus-three.
It was a tight game early with good hitting, skating and goaltending and it didn?t look as if anyone would score but this is junior hockey and things change quickly.
It changed drastically in the final 10 minutes of the second period. Tom Wilson sent the packed Compuware Arena crowd into a frenzy when he gave the Whalers a 1-0 lead at 11:46 of the second period.
But the announcer was still announcing the goal when Knights? Matt Rupert tied it up 20 seconds later. Less than two minutes later Max Domi gave the Knights a 2-1 lead and with just over a minute left in the second, Ryan Rupert scored to make it 3-1.
The Knights took control just that quickly and with starter Jake Patterson playing well, it was going to be tough for the Whalers to score that many to get back in the game.
Brett Welychka made it 4-1 in the third period.
But the Whalers weren?t ready to give it up. They pulled starter Matt Mahalak with more than two minutes to go and cut the lead to 4-2. Then Josh Anderson took a penalty. With 33 seconds left in the game, Garrett Meurs was awarded a penalty shot. If the Whalers scored it would have been 4-3 with a power play.
But Patterson gave Meurs nothing and he couldn?t get a shot off. Win 23 was secure.
?Each game you don?t know who is going to step up,? Ryan Rupert said. ?Last night it was (Welychka.) Tonight it was our line. We got a lot of confidence in that room.?
The Knights now look to tie the record with Sarnia Sting as the opposition. They play New Year?s Eve Day in Sarnia and then the potential record-tying game would be New Year?s Day in London.
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Fig.1. A historical representation ? a ?Vue de l?Optique composition? (a hand-coloured copper engraving used in a Laterna magica) ? shows ships on the Strait of Messina during a series earthquake in 1783 with more than 35.000 victims. 
Fig.2. Simplified tectonic settings of South Italy and the intensity of the December 1908 earthquake after the modified Mercalli scale (data from INGV site). In this model the earthquakes of Calabria and Sicily are mostly associated with a rift valley formed by the rollback of the Ionian Sea. 
