Trent Hawke got the playoffs started on the right foot for the Saugeen Shores Winterhawks.

The Wiarton native scored a hat-trick to help lead the Winterhawks to a 5-3 win over the Durham Thundercats in Game 1 of the WOAA Sr. "AA" quarterfinal.

The two teams felt each other out a bit as the game got underway in front of a big crowd at The Plex, with goaltenders Blake Sinclair for the Winterhawks and Gatlin Burt for the Thundercats turning aside everything thrown their way.

After a scoreless first period, Hawke opened the scoring at 7:05 of the 2nd, scoring on the powerplay after taking a feed from Brent MacDermid and putting the puck over the shoulder of Burt to make it 1-0 Winterhawks.

Durham fought back, with Randy Cox getting just enough of a centering pass at 15:18 to re-direct the puck past Sinclair to make it 1-1, then Kevin Van Dyk blasted a point shot past Sinclair just over a minute later to give Durham a 2-1 lead.

Hawke answered right back, banging in his own rebound at 17:29 to knot things up at 2-2, which is where things stood after the 2nd period.

MacDermid put the Winterhawks up early in the 3rd, picking up a rebound in front of Burt and sweeping the puck around the Durham netminder to make it 3-2 for the home side.

Minutes later, Durham tied the game on a bizarre turn of events. With the Thundercats on the powerplay, Josh Squigna banged away at the puck as Sinclair had the pads down. The Durham players began to celebrate a goal, but the referee at the net waived it off. As the Thundercats players protested, the referee quickly changed his call and awarded a goal to Durham to tie the game at 3-3.

The Winterhawks went back to the powerplay minutes later and Kyle Roulston provided the heroics, as he weaved his way through the Durham defenders and snapped the puck past Burt to give the Winterhawks a 4-3 lead.

Hawke finished off the hat trick on the powerplay at 16:03 when he found a puck at the side of the net and beat Burt to make it 5-3 Winterhawks.

Sinclair made 32 saves for his 100th career WOAA win.

The Winterhawks lead the best-of-seven series 1-0 and will head to Durham for two games, with Game 2 tonight [Saturday] at 7:00 p.m., then Game 3 next Friday [February 12].

We are planning to live stream the games from Durham, however, we are unable to guarantee a successful WiFi connection until game time.

with files from winterhawks.net.