Watch a dropped stick score a goal for OHL’s Windsor Spitfires, then empathize with Niagara goalie Brent Moran (VIDEO)

This play started with a sweet pass by Murphy, and ended with Murphy's law.

On Sunday, the Windsor Spitfires' Josh Ho-Sang scored one of the strangest goals one can readily recall in recent Ontario Hockey League action. Or more to the point, Niagara IceDogs' Aaron Haydon's stick was apparently controlled by some Jedi mind trick.

In the last minute of the first period in Windsor's eventual 7-4 win, Trevor Murphy hit a blazing Ho-Sang with a breakaway pass. Haydon tried a diving pokecheck, but either lost or threw his stick, which then neatly tucked the puck between goalie Brent Moran's five-hole. Like it had a mind of its own.

It starts 1:52 into the TV Cogeco Windsor recap:

Some empathy for Moran is due here. The oung goalie had a difficult day. One can only presume that the 17-year-old from Orléans, Ont., who is on the NHL's watch list for the 2014 entry draft was keen to get the start on Sunday. The IceDogs-Spitfires games was a veritable Sunday buffet for scouts, with draft prospects such as Moran, the aforementioned Haydon and Ho-Sang, Windsor's Nikita Yazkov and IceDogs left wing Brendan Perlini in action, among others.

The afternoon started rather inauspiciously for Moran —

— and the breaks just seemed to go against him. The first Windsor goal came when shot off the boards went in off Moran's foot. The sixth came on a shot that appeared to be redirected and IceDogs captain Jesse Graham deflected the puck into his own net on the seventh. Moran was also forced out of the game after taking a hard shot in the torso.

Point being, though, the goalie doesn't rate being made sport of, as comical as the loose-stick goal appeared to be. Moran didn't let the bad breaks or being stung by Janes' shot beat him down emotionally:

One shouldn't gloss over the goalie having a tough day, but it's a great 'from humble beginnings' story should Moran go on to fulfill his potential in the seasons ahead.

“It was a real tough game but I was proud of him,” IceDogs coach-GM Marty Williamson told the St. Catharines Standard. “He hung in there and battled. He made some big saves on a five-on three for us and it was one of those nights with some weird things happening.”

That's putting it mildly.

Neate Sager is a writer for Yahoo! Canada Sports. Follow him on Twitter @neatebuzzthenet. Please address any questions, comments or concerns to btnblog@yahoo.ca (video: TV Cogeco Windsor).