Well, being pre-season favourites didn't matter much this past Friday night at CIS #2 rank Universit de Moncton were upset by the University of Prince Edward Island and the #4 ranked University of New Brunswick lost to St. Thomas. As for #6 ranked St. Francis Xavier, both of their games were postponed as the campus struggled with apparently the same stomach virus that shut down Mount Allison University the weekend before.
Thanks to the work of Eric Drummie at vredshockey.com we now know that Friday's Battle of the Hill in Fredericton was the 146th meeting of UNB and STU in the 42 years the men's hockey teams have been competing against each other on their shared campus. St. Thomas was moved from the Miramichi to the south-west corner of the UNB campus in 1964 and the two schools have been battlin' ever since. Friday night the contest was played out in the unfamiliar confines of the York Arena, as STU's home building, the Lady Beaverbrook Rink, is still under renovation.
The Tommies seemed to take the best advantage of the cozy confines, as they did a yeoman job in taking away time and space from the normally up-tempo V-Reds, or you might say they clogged up the lanes, or you could just say they appeared to outwork the team in red 'n black and they certainly stayed more disciplined. UNB opened the scoring at 3:28 on the 5 on 3 powerplay as UBC transfer Nick Marach (Delta, BC) scored his third goal in three games. In the second period, with the V-Reds on the powerplay STU's Jeffrey Bateman (Belleville, ON) steamed by UNB defender David Bowman (St. Catharines, ON) shorthanded to tie the game up at 7:05. Just over two minutes into the third period it was super-pest Matt Seymour (Fredericton, NB) jumping all over a juicy rebound to give the Tommies the lead. UNB pressed for the rest of the period to get the tying marker but came undone when J.-M. Boisvert (Boucherville, QU) earned a match spearing penalty with six minutes to go for a selfish retaliation against Miguel Delisle (Cornwall, ON). STU salted away the victory with a empty netter with one second left on the clock for a 3-1 final score.
At the same time on the Island, Panthers goalie Paul Drew (Merlin, ON) stood on his head and stole the game as he stopped all 41 Moncton shots for the 2-0 shutout victory. Moncton had scored seven goals in each of their previous two victorious games last week. Jason Kowalski (Stratford, PE) scored the game winner in the first period and rookie Ryan Kitchen (Oshawa, ON) notched the insurance goal early in the third period for UPEI. The next night, Saturday, back home in Moncton les Aigles Bleus veteran Sbastian Strozyinski (Ile Perrt, QU) scored shorthanded at 3:48 and UdeM never relinquished the lead as they held on for a 6-4 victory against the visiting Tommies. Former UQTR defenceman Louis Mandeville had three assists for Moncton in the game.
Friday night at the Halifax Forum, the Saint Mary's Huskies recovered from a blown three-goal lead in the first period as defenceman Scott Hotham (Barrie, ON) scored the game winner at 4:56 of the third period to beat Acadia goaltender Lanny Ramage (Baldur, MB) and SMU escaped with the 6-5 win. Saturday night SMU jumped to an early two-goal lead against visiting arch-rival Dalhousie Tigers and cruised to a 7-2 win. Marc Rancourt (Gloucester, ON) had two goals and an assist and Dan Rudiseula (St. Catharines, ON) had two complimenting assists and a goal on the night as they continue to lead the team offensively.
With StFX out of commission there was only six games played this weekend; obviously those games will be rescheduled to later in the season. Moncton continues to lead the AUHC and SMU has jumped into second place with UNB and StFX one point back, tied for third. However the V-Reds have one game in hand and the X-Men has two games in hand, so effectively we're all bunched up, which seems to be the way we prefer it our here in the Maritimes.
David K