Well the cruel hand of fate dealt almost unplayable cards to the Dalhousie Tigers this past week, and now last year's bronze medal team at Nationals is out the playoffs for 2005. Wednesday night Dal was up against the visiting StFX X-Men and had to earn at least a point to stay alive in the playoff hunt. With star player Dominic Noel out of the lineup with pneumonia it rested on the shoulders of heart-and-soul player Ross McCain to lead the comeback from a 3-1 deficit in the third period. McCain had two goals, including the winner as Dal defeated X 4-3 and kept their season on life support.
Also on Wednesday, the SMU Huskies came back from a two goal deficit against the Acadia Axemen with five straight goals in the first and second periods and held on to earn the 5-4 victory. More importantly, the win snapped a five-game losing streak for the visiting Huskies and was the first loss in seven games for red-hot Acadia.
On Friday night, Dal was still in "win and hope for the best" mode as they hosted SMU in the last Battle of Halifax for the season. Again with Noel out of the lineup, Dal was first on the scoreboard with the first two goals of the second period. SMU's Kurt MacSweyn scored a power play goal at the fifteen minute mark to pull the Huskies within one goal, and it was Brad Self who scored with 1:12 to go in regulation. Then first-year sensation Ryan Lauzon scored in overtime for the 3-2 win for SMU and now Dal had to sit and wait to see what happened in the UPEI game.
For their part, the UPEI Panthers were visiting the STU Tommies Friday night. The game was held in the venerable (and usually frigid) York Arena in Fredericton as the Tommies' home barn, the LBR, was being used for the national junior curling championship. This night was another edition of the Paul Drew Show, as the Panther netminder faced 29 shots in the first two periods and only got beat once and the teams were tied 1-1 after 40 minutes. Then the Panthers shooters got going in the third period as they scored four goals, including an empty netter, to STU's single tally and stole the 5-2 victory. Final shots favoured the Tommies 43-29. With the two points from the win, UPEI dashed Dal's faint hopes and officially eliminated the Tigers from the playoffs.
In Moncton, the high flying UdeM Aigles Bleus had their 10 game undefeated home streak on the line as they hosted the UNB Varsity Reds. With their biggest crowd of the season UdeM swarmed UNB, and if not for the fine play of Reg Bourcier in the V-Red net the lead would have been more than 2-0 after 20 minutes. Late in the second, UNB's Nathan O'Nabigon scored a power play goal from a sharp angle and UNB seemed to be back in the game. Then 63 seconds later defensive specialist Jamie McCabe broke into the UNB zone on a 2 on 1 for a pretty goal and two goal lead. Then with six seconds to go in the period events went from bad to worse for the V-Reds. With UNB on the power play Moncton's Pierre Luc Laprise took a great pass from Scott Toner and went in alone against UNB defenceman Andrew deSousa. After putting a deke on deSousa he repeated the trick against Bourcier and Moncton was up 4-1. A visibly frustrated UNB team saw another goal scored against them in the third period before Stacey Smallman scored too little too late midway through the period. The final score was a solid 5-2 win for Moncton, outshooting UNB 32-19 in the process.
The last game Friday was in Wolfville, where Acadia scored twice in the first period and held on for a 2-1 win over the visiting X-Men. Acadia outshot StFX 34-23 and both teams were scoreless on their five power play opportunities.
Saturday UNB continued their roadtrip on to Charlottetown against UPEI. This night the V-Red offence was seeing success, as UNB scored once in the first period and twice in the second period to take a 3-0 lead. UPEI got a goal late in the second, but UNB's Dustin Friesen scored<