Third time proved lucky for the Calgary Dinos as they finally captured the T Bay Tel Varsity Cup with a 5-2 win over the St. Francis Xavier X-Men on Saturday afternoon at the Fort William Gardens in Thunder Bay, Ontario. This was Calgarys third trip to the tourney final but the previous two the Dinos had come away without the Cup.
It was a hard fought game from the get-go as the tenacious X-Men would not let the Dinos take the Cup without a battle. X again had a lot of penalty trouble and were assessed 14 penalties to Calgarys 7. However the Dinos were only able to get one goal on the power play while X also scored one with the man advantage and one shorthanded.
Both teams played some great hockey; when they werent hindered by penalties, and goaltenders Scott Talbot of Calgary and Ryan Aschaber of St. FX made some fantastic saves. Calgary outshot St. FX 42-31 on the game.
Scoring for the Dinos were Alexander Lalonde, Tyrell Lucas, Travis Friedley, Daniel Lapointe, and Lonnie Tetley. Ryan Annesley had two assists for the Dinos. Mike Smith and Sam Roberts replied for the X-Men. Nicholas Lees added two assists for X.
Play was fairly equal in the beginning of the first and then X began the parade to the sin bin again. Calgary jumped out in front at 12:42 on a goal by Lalonde. X came right back at 14:39 when Smith scored while shorthanded.
Calgary picked up two more in the second on goals by Lucas and Friedley in a fast paced period that again was hindered by the referees penalty whistle; mostly against X. The X-Men got within one at 13:17 of the third on Roberts powerplay blast from the point but the Dinos quickly made it 4-2 on Lapointes goal at 17:02. The X-Men pulled Aschaber and pushed for a goal but a loose puck was intercepted by Calgarys Tetley and he bagged the empty netter at 19:33 to put the game away for the Dinos and give them their first T Bay Tel Varsity Cup tournament championship.
The Three Stars were:
1) Scott Talbot: Calgary
2) Ryan Annesley: Calgary
3) Nicholas Lees: St. FX
Paid attendance for the final was 2144.