The Lakehead Thunderwolves hockey team will host the Royal Military College Paladins this weekend to open the OUA regular season. Game times are 7:30 pm on Friday and Saturday nights at the Fort William Gardens.
Last Time Out
Lakehead will be looking to start off the OUA season with a pair of wins after going 0-3 against some very tough non-conference competition last weekend. After being swept at home by the UPEI Panthers on Friday and Saturday, the Wolves travelled south of the border and took another loss to the NCAA powerhouse Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs on Monday night.
RMC splitits two non-conference road games last week, winning 3-1 at UQTR on Thursday, before being downed 5-1 at St. Thomas on Saturday.
Series History
Lakehead holds the all-time series lead over the Royal Military College with a record of 8-1-1 versus the Paladins.
The two teams last met in November of 2009, when Lakehead split its weekend series at RMC, losing 5-4 in overtime on the Friday before rebounding with a 6-0 win on the Saturday.
The last time RMC played at the Fort William Gardens was in January of 2008, when the Wolves swept the Paladins by scores of 8-3 and 8-2.
About the Paladins
The Royal Military College is located in Kingston, ON, and play in the OUA East Division. The Paladins return most of their top players from last years squad, including forwards Eric Louise-Seize, Scott Domenico and Colin Cook, all of whom are scoring threats.
Defencemen Scott McDonald and Alexander Pym head up the blue line, while netminder Paul Dorsey handles the bulk of the duties in the Paladins goal.
Injury Bug
The Wolves lost of couple of keys players to injuries this past weekend. Forward Carson Dubchak will be out of the line-up for six weeks, and goaltender Jeff Bosch is likely to miss three weeks, both with knee injuries. Chris De la Lande is expected to miss this weekend as he recovers from bacterial pneumonia. Jason Grecica (elbow) and Brennan Menard (concussion) are out indefinitely.