The Sarnia Sting are excited to leave eastern Ontario behind.
After kicking off the OHL regular season with six of their first seven games on the road, they’re eager to play more at Progressive Auto Sales Arena.
“It’ll be nice, obviously,” forward Parker Holmes said. “The road takes a toll on the body and (the) mental side.”
These trips weren’t short either. The Sting have already faced five out of ten teams in the Eastern Conference.
“We’re glad that a lot of road trips are behind us now, as funny as that sounds seven games in,” head coach Mathieu Turcotte said.
They will visit Eastern Conference teams North Bay and Sudbury, along with Western Conference rival Sault Ste. Marie, on their annual northern trip from Nov. 12 to 15. This leaves just Eastern visits to Brantford, Niagara and Brampton during the last four months.
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In recent seasons without playoffs, the Sting struggled as one of the league’s worst road teams with a total record of 30-57-11-4 for a.368 points percentage.
However, this season they’ve managed to go 4-2-0-0 on the road heading into Saturday’s game in Flint.
It’s been a tough schedule so far, but Turcotte sees some benefits. The players got to bond more than they might have if they were at home.
“It’s good that we had these road trips early because we do have 12 new faces, guys in our lineup that weren’t regular players last year,” Turcotte said. “It’s good to have everybody together and get the chemistry high.”
Before Friday’s home game against the Oshawa Generals, the Sting held an overall record of 4-2-1-0.
Following this weekend’s games, they’ll play four out of six matches on the road – none too far – before enjoying a five-game homestand from Oct. 30 to Nov. 8.
The Sting are on track for their best Eastern Conference road record in quite some time. They were 2-6-2-0 in 2025-26, 3-5-2-0 in 2024-25 and 4-6-0-0 in 2023-24.
NOTES: The NHL regular season began with 12 Sting alumni featured on opening-night rosters: Jordan Kyrou and Jakob Chychrun on Washington, Travis Konecny and Porter Martone on Philadelphia, Pavel Zacha on Boston, Connor Murphy on Edmonton, Anthony De Angelo on the New York Islanders, Hayden Hodgson on Ottawa, Ethan Del Mastro on Chicago, Luca Del Bel Belluz on Columbus, Sandis Vilmanis on Florida and Steven Stamkos on Nashville…. The American Hockey League opening-night rosters included Sting alumni Christian Kyrou on Belleville, Kai Schwindt on Charlotte, Sam Bitten on Hershey, Sasha Pastujov on Laval, Cam Dineen on Lehigh Valley, Jordan Bax on San Jose, Lukas Fischer on Springfield, Michael Pezzetta on Toronto and Ryan Mast on Wilkes-Barre/Scranton.
Mark Malone has covered sports for The since 1999 and for The since 2017.
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