Stingers roll over Ravens in home opener

Men’s hockey team was victorious over Carleton on Friday night, earning their first win of the season

The Concordia Stingers men’s hockey team was looking to extract some revenge against the Carleton Ravens in their home opener. The Ravens had previously beaten Concordia in Ottawa last week in the first game of the season. On Friday night, Oct. 10, the Stingers could not be stopped as they beat the Ravens 5-2.

Stingers forward Antoine Houde-Caron tucks a goal past Carleton’s netminder. Photo by Nikolas Litzenberg.

The game got off to a great start for the Stingers. Off the opening faceoff, Stingers defenceman Youssef Kabbaj fed forward Scott Oke who fired a quick shot past Carleton’s goalie to give Concordia a 1-0 lead, just 20 seconds into the game.

Four minutes later, after Stingers forward Ben Dubois got called for tripping, the Ravens capitalized. Carleton forward Joe Pleckaitis snapped a wrist shot past Stingers goaltender Robin Billingham to tie the game at 1-1.

It didn’t take Concordia long to respond as defenceman Sean Blunden got a pass from Marc-Olivier Brouillard and found the net to make it 2-1. Only a minute later Concordia got into even more penalty trouble when Olivier Jodoin was called for slashing.

After a slew of penalties by both teams, the Ravens defenceman Jason Seed got called for high sticking and the Stingers took full advantage of the powerplay. Forward Jessyko Bernard got a great pass from Kabbaj to extend the lead to 3-1.

After killing off a penalty of their own, the Stingers were back on the powerplay after Ravens defenceman Owen Werthner got called for tripping. Once again, Concordia took full advantage of the powerplay when Kabbaj gave a great pass to Matt Boudreau who found the net to give the Stingers a 4-1 lead over the Ravens.

Ten minutes later, as both teams were battling hard to get another goal, Carleton cut their deficit back down to two as Pleckaitis got his second goal of the game.

As they had been doing all game, the Stingers quickly responded and got another goal three minutes later. Kabbaj recorded his fourth assist of the game when he fed Stingers forward Antoine Houde-Caron, who ultimately made it 5-2 for Concordia.

The third period was mostly a period filled with penalties and scrums between the two teams, but the Stingers held on and earned their first win of the season.

“It was tremendous. We had great success tonight compared to last weekend. We actually used the same game plan just with a little more intensity and it showed,” said Concordia’s head coach Kevin Figsby. “If we keep playing like that we’re going to be very successful this year, and I really like how we faced adversity and we battled to overcome it.”

Kabbaj, who was clearly one of the best players on the ice, was happy he could help his team win.

“It felt good to be at home,”he said. “I got off to a slow start last week but now I’m slowly finding my game and it felt good to help contribute to the team tonight.”

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