McGill wins both games in home-and-home series against Concordia
The Concordia Stingers men’s hockey team lost an overtime thriller, 3-2, against the McGill Redmen on Nov. 18 at the Ed Meagher Arena. This was the Stingers’ second loss in two nights against the Redmen, after McGill won 2-1 on Nov. 17 at the McConnell Arena.
“It’s the Montreal rivalry. Every time we play McGill, it’s [intense],” said Stingers defenceman Alexandre Gosselin. “Those two games could have gone either way. It’s unfortunate we got one point out of four against them.”
The game at McGill on Friday night had 47 penalty minutes on 18 infractions split between the two teams. Concordia and McGill didn’t forget their dislike for each other Saturday night. Two minutes into the game, Redmen defenceman Redgie Bois cross-checked Stingers forward Francis Brunelle across the face. When the referee blew the whistle to give Bois a high-sticking penalty, Bois rubbed his glove in Brunelle’s face out of frustration, and the referee gave him another penalty for roughing. The Stingers failed to score on the four-minute power play.
This game finished with 26 penalty minutes on 13 infractions between the teams, but the Stingers did not score on seven power-play opportunities. Stingers head coach Marc-André Élement said the penalty-killing units on both teams played well.
“[McGill] wanted to pay the price by blocking shots, and even our guys on the penalty kill were blocking a lot of shots,” Élement said. “It’s like that when two good teams play against each other—it’s tight, and it’s all about the details.”
The Stingers opened the scoring with less than three minutes left in the first period. Forward Charles-Eric Legare scored on a rebound from a shot by forward Philippe Hudon. The Redmen tied the game midway through the second period on a power-play goal by forward Alexandre Sills. Over halfway through the third period, the Redmen took a 2-1 lead when forward Guillaume Gauthier capitalized on a bounce in front of Stingers goalie Marc-Antoine Turcotte.
“After we got scored on [the second time], a lot of the guys on the bench were bogged down because we kept fighting and grinding throughout the game,” Hudon said. “We didn’t feel like [the goal] was a good bounce that we needed.”
With less than two minutes left in the game, before Élement was able to pull Turcotte for an extra attacker, forward Philippe Sanche tied the game at 2-2.
“We beared down and kept pushing and pushing, and got our bounce,” Hudon said. “It allowed us to have that extra point heading into overtime. It’s really nice to see late in the game we didn’t let ourselves down, and we just kept pushing.”
In the final minute of three-on-three overtime, after Stingers forward Anthony Beauregard missed a shot, the Redmen quickly moved the puck up the ice. Forward Michael Cramarossa used his speed to get past Sanche, and he had a partial breakaway against Turcotte. He snuck the puck into the net, just passed Turcotte’s right pad, to give McGill the win.
“I’m not happy about not getting the win, but I’m happy about getting the huge point that will help us at the end of the season,” Élement said. He added that a defensive breakdown led to the overtime goal.
With the loss, the Stingers now have a 8-2-2 record, and sit in third place in the east division of the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) conference. The Stingers travel to southern Ontario next weekend to take on the Laurier Golden Hawks on Nov. 24, and the Waterloo Warriors on Nov. 25.
Main photo by Kirubel Mehari.
