The Concordia Stingers’ women’s hockey team earned itself a solid start to the 2003 season last Friday.
In Game One of the 35th annual Theresa Humes Tournament, the Lady Bees recovered from a scoreless first period to win the preliminary game 3-1 over CEGEP Limoilou.
The pace of the game during the first half of the opening period was very slow, as both teams took time to get back into the thick of things in their first game since early December.
“We hadn’t played in a month, but it was a good test for us to play against such a skilled team,” Stingers’ captain Marie-Claude Allard stated.
Slowly but surely, the Stingers’ offence began to apply more pressure on Limoilou goaltender Nancy Morin, but to no avail.
Despite strong efforts on both sides, the teams were sent to the locker rooms with a zero-all score at the end of the first period.
The Maroon and Gold’s defence broke down slightly in the second period’s opening minutes, allowing some Limoilou forwards to penetrate the zone.
The Stingers quickly found their focus, which resulted in a lot of end-to-end play throughout the period, with no one team dominating the other zone.
Stingers’ centre Dominique Rancour took things into her own hands and delivered the game’s opening goal by sinking the puck into the left side of the net.
The Limoilou squad did not take their opponent’s goal lightly, and earned one of their own five minutes later when Jacynthe Langlois fired the puck over Anderson’s left shoulder, ending the period at one-all.
The third period opened up with a bang for the Stingers as Catherine de Abreau slid the puck past an unsuspecting Morin, scoring the tiebreaker 47 seconds into the period.
Limoilou picked up the pace and began getting rougher in the zone, but with no result in sight as Concordia’s defenders pressured any stray snipers.
In the game’s dwindling seconds, Limoilou removed Morin from the net for an extra player on the ice.
Stinger forward Anouk Grignon L’Anglais took advantage of an open net and went for a long shot with seven seconds remaining, increasing her team’s win to 3-1 over CEGEP Limoilou.
“We were a little inconsistent in our intensity, we seemed to be off-sync a bit at times,” Head Coach Les Lawton explained.
“That’s what we expected in our first game back…it’s nice to be challenged early in the tournament, and I think it sets the pace for the rest of the weekend.”
