They are the students, the alumni, the people who play the game because they love it. They don’t have any aspirations of making the front page of the sports section after winning the big game or getting noticed by scouts who will pay them millions of dollars. No. The biggest concern for many of these players is coming up with a clever team name. But they play just as hard as any others to defend that name and the pride that they have for it.
This year thirty-six teams came together to form the Concordia Intramural Hockey League which is made of five divisions that are separated based on skill level. Here are the results from the finals that took place on Mar. 30.
Division I
In the league’s top division Black Ice beat up on the Panthers by a score of 5-1 in the division final.
The division champion completed a successful season in which they steamrolled through their competition since the first game of the season.
Black Ice coasted to the league’s best record that included just one loss in their 16 game season and an average of over six goals per game.
Team captain Peter Chronis was exhilarated and happy about his team’s impressive performance but not entirely surprised by their division championship. “We’ve been playing together for a few years now and it was sort of expected that we would perform this way.”
Chronis credited most of the team’s success to its superior offence and stellar goaltending provided by Eric Hakka.
Division II
Club 7310 emerged as champions in this division where no one team was able to stand alone as the most dominant during the regular season.
In their two playoff games, however, Club 7310 put in a solid performance by outscoring the opposition 10-1. The strong effort culminated in a 4-0 victory against the Chiefs who were a surprise by in making it to the finals.
The Chiefs finished nine points out of first place and barely squeezed into the post-season. Nevertheless they managed to rout the first place Stars 10-2 in playoff action before losing to Club 7310.
A couple of noteworthy stats about Club 7310 were its offence which was tops in the six team division and its goals against average which was good enough for second.
Division III
In another closely fought division the Pylons, which was also the best team in the regular season, continued that trend in the playoffs where they won the championship against the Traveling Raters 3-1.
Another big reason for the Pylons to be proud about their win is that they were playing in what was one of the intramural league’s most hotly contested divisions. In fact, this division was the only one in which every team that qualified for the playoffs had a record in which they won at least half of their games.
Despite not having the best offensive potency in their division, the Pylons finished with the third best goals-against in the entire league at just under three goals a game.
Division IV
Although Division III was hard fought and tight to the finish it was nothing compared to how close things were here.
This division, where six of the ten teams advanced to the playoffs, saw a race that finished with only four points separating first place form the sixth and final playoff spot.
In the end it was the Bullets IV that claimed the division championship by first edging out the Ravens 7-6 in their first playoff game. Then they performed a similar feat against the Zolts with a 5-4 victory in the championship.
Bullets IV captain Ronny Velicogna was very excited about the team winning just its third divisional title in the last fifteen years.
“It was a really tight game but we put in a good team effort and got it done,” Velicogna said.
Amongst all of team’s great assets, the Captain gave the most credit to forward Junior Boffice who netted hat tricks in both playoff games.
Although they were one of three teams that finished the season with nine wins, the Bullets IV finished having played only 12 games, four less than the other two teams.
Division V
In what is considered the weakest division in the league It’s All Good (I.A.G.) proved that they belong in another class as they blazed a trail to the championship.
I.A.G. was also by far the oldest team in the division as most of its team consisted of Concordia alumni in their thirties. The experience clearly paid off as they finished the season thirteen points ahead of the second place Red Army.
The heavily favored team did receive an early reality check in the regular season when they lost to the Red Army. But then again, it was their only loss of the season.
I.A.G would go on to face the Red Army in the final where they squeaked out a 4-3 overtime win.
I.A.G Captain Brian Marks was happy and somewhat relieved with the team’s performance and winning their first division championship in three years. “It was a really long season,” he said. “We got an early wake-up call and got better because of it.”
The division champions also get credit for the quirkiest stat of all division finals as forward Carlo Petrone scored the overtime goal that gave I.A.G. its victory. It was also Petrone who scored the winning goal the last time I.A.G won their division.
