Wednesday night, the Stingers hit the road for their first playoff game of the year to face the University of Ottawa Gee-Gee’s that they had just beat 5-4 in the final match of the season the previous Sunday.
For the first time in a while, the Stingers showed signs of life early, with a big goal at 10:14 of the first from veteran left-winger Yannick Noiseux. Sohpohmore right-wing Bruno Champagne set up the play with a cross-crease pass after receiving a feed from Phil Seguin. At 10:45, Ottawa’s Adam Vaughan was given two for hooking, and assistant captain Fred Faucher found a hole through traffic to beat Ottawa’s goalie, Mathieu Blanchard at 11:55.
It wasn’t until midway through the second when Noiseux was called for highsticking at 13:02 that Ottawa was able to get on the board. Ben McLeod from Jonathan Robert and Jerome Briere beat Pat Lepage with an ugly goal at 13.31.
After a lengthy penalty parade in the first two periods, it quieted down in the third. With the Stingers still up by one, they played hard and notched their third goal at 1:35 of the third, and added another at 10:31 from Phil Lacasse to close out the night, with the final score at 4-1 for the Stingers.
Pat Lepage played outstanding that night, saying he “did what I had to do. I feel good, but I know there are more games, and I don’t want to over-react and say ‘that was great.'” Lepage, who was being heckled the whole game by the Gee-Gees football team said “heckling is part of the game,” and that it didn’t distract him.
Friday night the highflying Gee-Gees came into Loyola with a vengeance. They got on the board early with a power play marker at 6:45 as a low, heavy slapshot beat Lepage from the point from Ottawa defenseman Mike Barrett.
It was during a 5-on-3 that the Stingers tied the game up at one. Rookie S
