Direct from the CIS
V-Reds tie CIS record
- February 05 2010
A busy Wednesday night in AUS men's hockey saw the CIS No. 1 ranked UNB Varsity Reds defeat the Moncton Aigles Bleus 5-1 to tie a CIS record for consecutive wins to open the season, the No. 4 ranked Acadia Axemen escape a scare on home ice with an OT win over the Dalhousie Tigers and the streaking UPEI Panthers pick up a 5-2 win over St. Thomas, their third straight win, to tie the StFX X-Men for fourth place in the AUS standings.
In Fredericton, UNB defeated the visiting Moncton Aigles Bleus 5-1 Wednesday night for their 24th straight win in front of a crowd of 2,479 at the Aitken Centre. With the victory, the V-Reds have matched the 2002-03 Western Mustangs as the only men's hockey team to start regular season league play with a record of 24-0-0. The game also marked the 18th annual Mark Jeffrey Memorial Game, and for everyone associated with the UNB hockey program it is the most important game of the season.
The ceremonial game face off saw the late Mark Jeffrey's father, Jim, and one of his nieces, Meagan, come out to centre ice. Before the puck was dropped, this year's honoree was named for the prestigious annual Mark Jeffrey Award - fifth year winger John Scott Dickson (Barrie, ON), perhaps the best ever two-way forward to play for the Varsity Reds. Dickson excels on the penalty kill even more than he does on the power play and leads by example when it comes to blocking shots.
The first period went reasonably well for Moncton as they did a pretty good job on the physical fore-check and battling for pucks in the neutral zone. Moncton goaltender Pierre-Alexandre Marion (Gatineau, QC) was stellar in nets in the period, as he faced 14 shots and kept the Varsity Reds off the scoreboard.
A power play early in the second period gave UNB their first goal, when after Marion made two or three point blank saves, the V-Reds slung the puck over to Daine Todd (Stettler, AB), who came racing in off the point in time to one-time the pass into the wide open left side of the Moncton net at 1:30.
UNB was on the power play again around the 13 minute mark when UdeM's Ian Mathieu-Girard (St-Gedeon de Beauce, QC) had a great opportunity to tie the game when he got the puck away from V-Reds point man Ben Shutron (Gloucester, ON) at the Moncton blue line, raced the other way and rang his shot off the right post of the Varsity Reds net. UNB was back on the power play at 15:19 when Hunter Tremblay (Timmins, ON) skated over the Moncton blue line with the puck on a two-on-two rush, slowed down and then suddenly accelerated as he zigzagged through two Aigles Bleus defenders before driving the net and deking Marion for the goal, his 19th of the season. UNB outshot UdeM 16-5 in the period.
Early in the third period Moncton showed some great second effort as they fired two good shots at UNB's Travis Fullerton (Riverview, NB) before they were third time lucky on defenceman Mathieu Bolduc's (Victoriaville, QC) shot into the top corner at 1:52. UNB responded with two straight goals from Jeff Lee (Calgary, AB). At 4:49 Lee was one-on-three as his teammates made a line change, and he just kept going as he weaved his way through the blue shirts, found himself at the net and put the puck past Marion. Then at 10:13 Lee used his speed to come out from behind the Moncton net with the puck, stick-handled across the crease through a crowd, and put the puck in the far corner. The last goal of the game came at 16:43 when John Scott Dickson was in the low slot and he jumped on the juicy rebound from a heavy Josh Kidd (Sundridge, ON) point shot. Shots were close in the final period, 10-9 in favour of UNB.
The final shots were 40-20 for UNB in the 5-1 victory. UNB was 2-for-5 on the power play while UdeM went 0-for-6. A testament to UNB's strong penalty kill all night was that Moncton was not credited with a shot on goal for any of their power play opportunities. The player of the game was Jeff Lee.
Next up for the Varsity Reds in the weekend road trip to play StFX on Friday night and Dalhousie Saturday night.
No. 4 Acadia Axemen 4, Dalhousie Tigers 3 (OT) - Boxscore
In Wolfville, the CIS No. 4 ranked Acadia Axemen moved one step closer to clinching second place and a first round playoff bye with four games left to play in the regular season with a hard fought 4-3 overtime win against the feisty Dalhousie Tigers, who defeated the Axemen 4-3 in OT in their previous match-up just two weeks ago in Halifax.
The visiting Tigers silenced a mid-week crowd of just over 1,200 with an early goal by first-year forward Trevor MacKenzie (Sackville, NS) at the 6:34 mark, his fourth of the season, to take a 1-0 first period lead which they would hold onto heading into the first intermission. Both teams registered nine shots on goal in the opening period.
Freshman Axemen Spencer Jezegou (Oshawa, ON) responded on the power-play with his ninth goal of the season to tie the game at 2:34 of the second period. Acadia added two more unanswered goals in the second period including Adam McIllwraith's (Quispamsis, NB) first of the season at the 4:18 mark. Philippe Bertrand (Cap-Sante, QC) gave the Axemen a 3-1 lead after two frames with his sixth of the season at 12:22. Acadia outshot the Tigers 13-8 in the period.
Just over a minute into the third period, Dalhousie's leading scorer Patrick Sweeney (Nepean, ON) scored his fourth of the year to bring the Tigers to within one goal. Four minutes later, with the Axemen on the power-play, Dalhousie's Francois Gauthier (Rimouski, QC) scored his second short-handed marker of the season at 5:56 to tie the game at 3-3. The Axemen held a 10-7 advantage in shots in the third, but were unable to score and the game was forced into a 10-minute overtime period.
At 6:43 of the extra session, Acadia's Andrew Clark (Brandon, MB) skated around a Tigers defender and held onto the puck until the last possible minute before lifting his ninth of the season over sprawled-out netminder Bobby Nadeau (Lac-Etchemin, QC) to give Acadia the win.
Nadeau, who stopped 38-of-42 shots was named the second Subway Star of the Game while OT hero Andrew Clark was given top honours. Acadia's Jezegou's three-point night earned him the third star.
Notes: The Axemen hold a six-point lead as well as the tie-breaker over the third place Saint Mary's Huskies with four games to play. Both teams will wrap up the regular season with home-and-home match-ups against the St. Thomas Tommies and the Moncton Aigles Bleus...The Tigers (8-12-4) will be home this weekend looking to hold onto their sixth place and final playoff spot as they host the hot UPEI Panthers (11-11-2) at home on Friday and then the undefeated UNB Varsity Reds on Saturday...Second year forward Chris Bruton, who has 11 goals and 24 points this season, left the game and never returned.
0 Comments