The Concordia Stingers won their first home game of the season last Wednesday night with a 5-3 victory over the East Conference’s top ranked Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR).
The game went back and forth all evening. Concordia opened the scoring in the first seven minutes when Cory McGillis went top shelf, but UQTR countered less than five minutes later on a goal that irked head coach Kevin Figsby because of a missed icing call.
“That should’ve been icing,” he insisted.
“One of our players got a little injured. He skated back thinking it’s icing, and then a guy came at him and he fell face first into the boards.”
“That, to me, is dangerous to the well being of the player and when that happens I’m going to make my point very clear,” Figsby said.
By then end of the first, UQTR had a 2-1 lead but the Stingers evened the score at the beginning of the second. With Patriotes centre Jean-Sébastien Breton in the box for high sticking, Concordia was able to capitalize with a McGillis shot from the point for his second of the night.
Midway through the second period, with UQTR on top 3-2, Concordia took control of the game when Brad Gager fooled netminder Jean-Christophe Blanchard to level the score. After that, with five minutes remaining in the second, Emile Bouchard converted a feed from Matt David and Corey Garland to give Concordia a 4-3 lead.
UQTR was forced to play catch up during the third. But with less than a minute left and the goalie pulled, the Stingers were able to seal the win as Captain Marc-André Element scored an empty netter, making the final score 5-3.
Figsby was pleased that the team got their second win of the season, and he attributed the win to the fact that most of their roster was back from injuries.
“That’s the first time we had close to our full squad all season. We’ve fought a lot of adversity which is going to make us a much better team,” he explained.
Bouchard said he was happy to score the game winner and help the team get their first win at home. “It feels good to get a goal like that. I’m more of a hard worker than a natural scorer…so it’s good for the [team’s] morale.”
Unfortunately, Concordia couldn’t carry the momentum into their Saturday afternoon match against York University and they suffered a 6-4 loss. Element, Jesse Goodsell, Renaud Des Alliers, and Stefan Lutzenkirchen all scored for Concordia.
The Stingers are on the road this week with their next two games in Ontario. They face Ryerson this Friday and then Queen’s the following Saturday. Their next home game is Dec. 4 at 7:30 pm against Ottawa University for their last match of the fall semester.
