A few weeks ago I talked about the St. Mary's Huskies breaking away from the pack in the AUHC and suspecting that the pack would reel them back in. Well to continue with the cycling motif, the Moncton Aigles Bleus have caught up to the Huskies this past week and the peleton has the twin leaders in their sights.
The UNB Varsity Reds are also a big story this week. After struggling to get back to the .500 mark, the V-Reds have reeled off three straight wins, for four wins in their last five games. On Wednesday the old MacAdam division rivalries were renewed. UNB visited the STU Tommies at the LBR in the third game of the Battle of the Hill series in Fredericton. V-Reds' Kyle Werner opened the scoring midway through the first period with a power play blast that STU goalie Aaron Molner only got a piece of. Five minutes later Ryan Mockler was Johnny-on-the-spot in a scramble in the slot to take the 2-0 lead. In the second period J.M Boisvert was in position for a Rob Hennigar pass on the power play and UNB was up three zip. Around three minutes later STU defenceman Mike Couch picked up his own rebound to get the Tommies on the scoreboard.
Late in the second period Harvey Station's Justin Roy was allowed to walk out of the corner and score in the power play to bring STU within a goal. That was as close as STU got as UNB put on a smothering team defence in the third period, taking only two shot of their own but keeping STU from getting the tie goal. UNB managed to cut down their penalties on the night for the 3-2 win, but lost two defenceman in the process. Bart Rushmer went down in the first period as he was helped into the big wall by a STU player. Later in the game, seldom used replacement defenceman Matt Doherty suffered a shoulder injury and had to leave the game.
In the other game Wednesday, UPEI Panthers were visiting les Aigles Bleus in Moncton. UdeM's Yvan Busque scored early in the first period, and J-F Cyr scored a power play goal early in the second period. Late in the second period UPEI's Craig Foster scored short handed, but that was the only goal the Panthers managed. Moncton scored an empty netter late in the third to get the 3-1 win and the big two points.
Moving on to the weekend, UNB was host to the StFX X-Men in a replay of the CIS gold medal game at the Aitken University Centre. UNB started the game with five d-men by getting Kevin Werner back in the lineup to replace the still injured Rushmer and Doherty. X came out flying, but it was UNB's Stacy Smallman who jumped on a puck that rolled off a X-Man's stick and scored the backhand at 15:50 of the first. In the second period, while shorthanded X captain Patrick Grandmaitre gathered in an attempted clearing shot off the glass by goalie Mike Mole that hit a stanchion and landed on his stick. He went the length of the ice with a backing up UNB defenceman and then deked the d-man and UNB goalie Reg Bourcier for the prettiest goal of the night. Just over three minutes later UNB's Kyle Werner redirected a hard pass from Rob Hennigar on the rush to restore the lead. Then two minutes later Dusty Friesan and Rob Hennigar worked a two-on-one short handed breakaway perfectly and UNB was up 3-1. That was all the scoring in the game as UNB put on a smothering team defence again. X went 0 for 6 on the power play, after scoring 4 power play goals the previous weekend against STU.
Meanwhile in Halifax on Friday, STU was working an upset of first place SMU. The Tommies had the lead throughout the game, as they scored two goals in the first period, and traded goals in the second period. In the third period, they matched each of the Huskies' goals with one of their own and held on for the huge 5-3 win. In Wolfville, the visiting Aigles Bleus scored first, but needed a late goal to force a then 3-3 tie and overtime against the Acadia Axemen. With 21 seconds to go in overtime, Acadia's Kevin Bak