Concordia comes up best game of season versus Ottawa with 4 – 2 win Sunday

The Stingers played a spectacular game Sunday afternoon against the Ottawa Gee-Gees, coming out with a 4-2 win and marking Stingers’ captain Trevor Blanchard’s first natural hat trick.
Concordia looked like a power force on the ice, quick on their feet and delivering crushing hits to the opponent that defeated them 7-3 last week.
Stingers forward Corey Ruhnke was the first to pull the trigger, just a minute into the period, skating in and firing with a shot that caught Gee-Gee’s goalie Riley Whitlock on his blocker side, and was quickly tossed away.
Concordia kept strong on the attack and played a tight game, squashing breakaway opportunities and stifling scoring attempts. When a random Gee-Gee did slip by, starting goalie Patrick Lepage flashed the leather and robbed nearly every one.
Stingers forward Renaud Des Alliers opened the game in scoring, with 13:52 left in the first period. Simon-Pierre Sauvé collected the assist on a shot that sped right past Whitlock, to put Concordia up 1-0. Just a few minutes later, Marc-André Rizk nearly made it 2-0 Stingers when he rushed in and fired a shot, but it was quickly gloved by Whitlock for the ensuing face off.
Ottawa was looking a little desperate and surprised at Concordia’s constant attack, and they began taking stupid penalties. Gee-Gees defenceman Patrick Bilodeau got a knee right into Rizk, as the Stinger was skating up the ice. A two-minute minor was called instead of the five-minute major that the hit deserved.
Ottawa scored on a power play five minutes into the second period, with Stingers defenceman Justin Ciampini in the box for roughing. With Lepage being heavily screened, Gee-Gees Kevin Glode fed a pass to Rob Jarvis, who tapped the puck in.
The quick pace and hard hitting of the game led to quite a few skirmishes in the second period, which ultimately resulted in three Stingers and four Gee-Gees receiving ten-minute misconducts.
The third period proved to be the winner, with Blanchard getting three goals in three minutes.
The first one came short-handed, with Stingers forward Gabriel Boies in the box for slashing. Blanchard took a pass from Brad Gager, and deked the goalie to make the score 2-1.
In an effort to tie up the game, Ottawa pulled their goalie in favour of an extra attacker. It backfired though, as Blanchard gained control of the puck by out skating a Gee-Gees defenceman, and easily shot the puck into the empty net to record his second goal, and make the score 3-1.
With only forty-one seconds left, Ottawa managed to close in on the game to make it 3-2. However, the Gee-Gees pulled their goalie with just under twenty seconds to go. Concordia once again gained control of the puck, and Blanchard skated up the ice and tossed in another empty-netter to make the final score 4-2.
“This is my first hat trick [in this league],” Blanchard said, “To help the team win a big game on the road is a bonus.”
“It’s funny that two of those goals were empty netters-but hey, I’ll take it,” he laughed.
Blanchard admitted that being defeated 7-3 last week by this same team was a big motivator when they walked into the arena today.
“We remembered that,” he said, “it was on our minds when we came in here, and fortunately, we came out with the win.”
Coach Figsby said that this was the first time all season that he had seen his team play solid hockey for the full sixty minutes.
“Today is a road win,” he said, “it’s a big, big win for us. After what happened last week, we came in and we dominated this game from start to finish.”
“We were the better team on the ice today,” coach Figsby said.
The Stingers play at home on Friday, Nov. 9 at 7:30 p.m. against the University of Toronto. They play again at home on Saturday Nov. 10, at 2 p.m., facing Ryerson.

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