(OUA): February 13, 2006 - Theres a hockey theory that says while playing at home is nice, teams tend to bond on the road. The McGill Redmen can relate as they picked up their eighth shutout of the year away from home in a 2-0 win over the Ottawa Gee-Gees Saturday. Lucas Madill and Marko Kovacevic scored for the No. 2 Redmen, extending their undefeated streak to eight, while snapping Ottawas run of seven without a loss. Mathieu Poitras stopped all 26 shots he faced to record his CIS-record tying seventh shutout of the year. McGill defeated the Concordia Stingers by the same 2-0 score Tuesday. Ken Davis had a goal and an assist, including the game winner at 14:24 of the opening period, with McGill on a power play. Charles Gauthier also scored once and assisted on Daviss goal, while Shawn Shewchuk had two helpers.
The Redmen (20-1-3-0) will have a bye in the first-round of the East playoffs, along with the Toronto Varsity Blues (8-13-2-1), who finished ahead of the RMC Paladins in the Mid East by virtue of having more league wins. The Blues finished the regular season on an offensive rampage as they beat the Ryerson Rams twice by scores of 6-0 Thursday and 11-1 Saturday. Simon Barg had a hat-trick for Toronto in the first meeting, while Ryan Grinnell made 28 saves for the shutout. In the second game, the Blues exploded for six goals in the second period of the route. Barg had two more goals and an assist, while Greg Palka scored twice. Scott Malcolm and Mark Wright had three points each for Toronto.
The third-seeded UQTR Patriotes will meet up with sixth seed RMC in a best-of-three quarter final match-up. Fourth-seeded Ottawa and number five Concordia also meet up, with the lowest seed remaining of the four having to face McGill in one semi-final. UQTR wrapped up the regular season with a 4-2 come-from-behind win over the Stingers. Jonathan Lessard, Samuel Gibbons and Yannick Lavigne all scored in the third period to lift the Patriotes to a victory.
The Western Mustangs and Laurier Golden hawks finished first and second in the West and will sit out the opening playoff round. The first round features two interesting match-ups as the third-seeded Warriors take on the surging Brock Badgers and the Lakehead Thunderwolves, the number four seed in the West, battle the number five York Lions.
Brock finished the regular season strong with a convincing 9-1 win over York Thursday and a 4-3 victory over the Guelph Gryphons Saturday. Ryan Del Monte, Chris Knighton and Curtis Yausie all had two goals and two assists for the Badgers in the win over the Lions. Mike MacIntyre had a goal and four assists, while Jonathon Labelle scored twice. Brennen Giroux and Josh Bonar helped Brock jump out to a 2-0 first-period lead in the Guelph game and the Badgers hung on to improve their record to 9-11-2-2. OUA scoring leader Jesse Pyatt scored twice for Guelph.
Waterloo got an early taste of the playoff environment as they played a home-and-home with the Windsor Lancers, sweeping both games by scores of 4-2 and 5-3. David Philpott had a goal and an assist for the Warriors in the opener, while Curtis Darling was sharp between the pipes, making 42 saves for the win. Shane Hart had a goal and two assists in the rematch in Waterloo. Darling made 27 saves in that game. Jordie Preston had a goal and two assists for Windsor.
Laurier recovered from a 6-2 loss to Guelph earlier in the week to beat the Lions 5-4 Saturday. Ryan Courtney scored twice for the Mid West leading Hawks, while Nick Vergeer and Richard Colwill had a goal and an assist each. Matt Passfield scored twice for the Lions.