By Tony Saxon, Guelph Mercury

As the final buzzer sounded at the Sleeman Centre Sunday afternoon, Guelph Storm forward Tanner Richard shot the puck at the empty net. He missed by five feet.

It was that kind of afternoon for the Storm, who were soundly spanked by the London Knights 8-2.

No sugar coating this one, no pulling some positives from an early season loss, no “well so-and-so played well.” Everyone, from the 3,500 paying souls to the coach and players realized it was a brutal effort.

Storm coach Scott Walker was most disappointed with the play of his older and drafted players.

Captain Matt Finn (pictured) and partner Daniel Poliziani had a very rough night, Garret Sparks let in all eight goals on 40 shots and forwards Scott Kosmachuk and Tanner Richard were both benched for long stretches for the second straight game.

Not that Kosmachuk and Richard were much worse than anyone else, Walker just expects more from them.

“I guess they’re all happy they got drafted and think they’re pretty good,” Walker said.

“Matt wasn’t very good, he’s got to be better ... and the forward guys who are drafted were pretty non-existent in our first game of the season and they were worse tonight.

Finn owned up to having a rough game.

“Everybody did. But we win or lose as a team: we play well together and we play bad together. Obviously this was a day we weren’t at our best and I don’t think any guy in our dressing room can say we were,” Finn said.

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