Well the biggest news in the Maritimes of course is Team Canada's victory over Russia on Saturday at the World University Games in Torino, the first gold medal for Canada since the CIS started sending conference all-star hockey teams by rotation to the bi-annual tournament. Best ever finish before Saturday? Well that was the first time the Atlantic University Hockey Conference got to send a team in 2001, when they lost the gold medal by one goal to Slovakia.
I won't write a summary of the big game, since I wasn't there and you can read all about it on the CIS site here: http://www.cisport.ca/e/international/universiade/turin_2007/story_detail.cfm?id=638 However, I can't resist pulling out one quote from Louis Mandeville, a former star defenceman with UQTR now taking his MBA at the Universit de Moncton: "I think as a whole, the Canadian university league is underrated. It's my first year in the Atlantic conference and the calibre is unreal. The team we brought here compares to the American Hockey League, no doubt in my mind."
Somewhat lost in the excitement of following the guys over there the AUHC continued with a reduced schedule this week. The biggest game of the week was Friday night in Halifax, where the Saint Mary's Huskies were hosting the UdeM Aigles Bleus. SMU's Travis Chapman (Alliston, ON) scored on the powerplay in the first period, UdeM's Sebastien Strozynski (le Perrt, QC) replied with his own powerplay marker early in the second period and Husky forward Bobby McBride (Whitby, ON) got the game winner at 14:54 of the third period.
There were two games on Saturday. The plucky Dalhousie Tigers travelled to Charlottetown and thumped the UPEI Panthers 5-1, and more importantly put themselves within one point of Acadia and UPEI for the final playoff spot. Not bad for a team many wrote off (but not me!) back in November.
The struggling St. Thomas Tommies had the unenviable task of trying to stop the red-hot StFX X-Men on Saturday, with only four healthy defencemen dressed for the game. All of the scoring happened in the second period, with the teams exchanging goals before veteran plumber Michael Smith (Hamilton, ON) got the game winner at 17:27 as his shot from the circle beat screened STU netminder Matt Davis (Harvey, NB). Davis had an especially busy night as the X-Men outshot the Tommies 41-27. However the biggest factor of the night was STU's inability to carry the puck out of their own zone as X poured on a relentless forecheck in the 2-1 victory.
With only seven games left in the schedule, every game now is vitally important as teams battle for playoff spots. So far all that has been decided is that Moncton has clinched a playoff spot, and has all but clinched the first round bye. StFX, UNB and SMU, a point apart respectively in second, third and fourth place are duking it out for the other first round bye. STU looks to be stuck in fifth place, four points back of SMU, and six points ahead of Acadia and UPEI in sixth place.
Looking ahead, UNB travels down the hill to meet STU on Wednesday in a game that frankly is more important to UNB than STU. Equally important is SMU at StFX in the battle for second place and Acadia at Dal in the three-way battle for sixth place. UPEI is probably not looking forward to their game against first-place Moncton as they try to keep pace with Acadia and Dal.
The X-factor this week is going to be the play of the returning players from Team Canada. Are they going to continue to carry the emotion and momentum of the gold medal victory in their play this week, or will fatigue hit them as they get back to class and practice with their teammates?
David Kilfoil is the longtime broadcast partner with Dave Ritchie for STU and UNB men's hockey on CHSR-FM. The comments above are solely his and don't represent the<