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Bell Canada Varsity Cup Day 3: Calgary 4 Lakehead 3

Mon Dec 30, 2002
Written by Mike Aylward
Photo by James Mirabelli

This game featured a lot of good scoring opportunities and some good goaltending by Calgary's Tyler Nilsson and Lakehead's Grant McCune. The Dinos were lead by Ken McKay with 2 goals and an assist. The Thunderwolves were lead by the fast skating of Jeff Richards who scored a goal and just missed with his heavy slapshot on three other occassions.

Calgary came out with a lot of jump, seeming the fresher of the two teams, and their fast skating consistently beat the Thunderwolves to the puck for most of the first period. The Dinos' Josh Woitas came close at the 12 second mark when he rushed in alone and fired a shot between Lakehead netminder Grant McCune's legs, but McCune squeezed his pads together and kept the puck from going in. Ken Mckay opened the scoring for Calgary at 8:42 when he stole the puck from behind off a Lakehead defenseman in the Thunderwolves end, turned and fired the puck between McCune's legs. Lakehead's Jeff Richards tied the score on the powerplay at 18:17 when he roofed the puck over Nilsson's glove after being set up in the slot on a perfect pass from Joel Scherban behind the Calgary net. The other assist went to Shawn Perring.

Both teams came out fast early in the second with Calgary's Nilsson robbing Lakehead's Erik Lodge in the first minute of play. Calgary's Sean Robertson scored the prettiest goal of the game at 3:34. Robertson came in alone on a Lakehead defensman, spun him around with a deke, then went in and faked out Thunderwolves netminder McCune and slipped the puck between the keeper's legs. Assists went to Mckay and Jason Boyd. McCune made a great glove save off a blistering point shot by Sheldon Nedjelski at 9:34. The Dinos' Jordan Walker made it 3-1 Calgary at 12:23 when he knocked in a rebound off a shot from the point by Trevor Segstro. Calgary's Nilsson made two great saves during the last minute while Lakehead was on the powerplay.

As seemed the case this whole tournament, the Thunderwolves came out hard in the third period. Both teams applied some heavy bodychecks and had good scoring chances. Lakehead's Mike Jacobsen made it 3-2 at 4:03 when he blasted a powerplay goal from the blueline that beat a screened Nilsson, with assists going to Aaron Picinnin and Chris Shaffer. Calgary's Mckay replied 10 seconds later with a shorthanded tally, when he raced for a cleared puck heading towards Lakehead goaltender McCune. Mckay flipped the puck over a diving McCune to notch the unnassisted goal. Lakehead struck back quickly at 4:58, when Joel Scherban and Bryan Duce broke in alone on Nilsson and Scherban passed the puck across to Duce who banged it past a sliding Nilsson. Lakehead applied some late pressure during a powerplay but Nilsson made two great saves to end the game and keep the score at 4-3. Lakehead outshot Calgary 31-30 in the game.

The Three Stars, as chosen by Nils Inkilla of Canadian Sanomat newspaper, were:
1) Ken Mckay - Calgary
2) Jeff Richards - Lakehead
3 Patrick Tetley - Calgary

Attendance on the third day of the tourney was 2385. Sunday's results gives Calgary a record of 3-0 in the tourney and a spot in the final on Monday. The other three teams ended up with identical 1-2 records, and Lakehead goes through to the final based on goal differential. The final takes place at 2:00 PM E.S.T. at the Fort William Gardens in Thunder Bay.