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OUA roundup: No. 6 Patriotes win Top 10 battle against No. 5 Redmen
TROIS-RIVIERES, Que. - Alexandre Demers and Guillaume Chicoine
scored two goals apiece as the No.6-ranked Trois-Rivières
Patriotes handed visiting No.5-McGill a spooky 8-2 spanking before
a lively men's university hockey Carnival Week crowd of 1,003 at Le
Colisée, Wednesday.
It was the most goals scored by UQTR in more than a decade against
McGill since an 8-1 win at Trois-Rivières on Jan, 23, 1998.
The result snapped McGill's five game win streak over the Pats and
had the Redmen seeing déjà-vu all over again as it
marked the second time this season that McGill, one of the nation's
top defensive clubs, had conceded eight goals. The other occasion
was an 8-4 road loss in Waterloo against Laurier on Nov. 13.
Both games had an eerie number of things in common.
To begin with, both WLU and UQTR scored eight times and the home
team won in each case without their head coach behind the bench. In
the game at WLU, Hawks coach Kelly Nobes was serving a one-game
suspension and in the contest at UQTR, bench boss Jacques Laporte
was also serving a similar penalty.
In the Laurier game, McGill outshot the Hawks 43-32 and in the UQTR
contest, the Redmen had a 42-31 margin in shots.
Both games featured a 4-0 lead and a shorthand goal for the home
team, plus identical 10-minute misconducts to rugged McGill
rearguard Yan Turcotte.
Redmen sophomore netminder Hubert Morin started both games and was
yanked in the second period of each contest. Both times, Morin was
beaten for four goals and so was his replacement.
Against Laurier, rookie Hunter Shaw took over and also conceded
four markers. Against UQTR, McGill trailed 4-0 after the opening
frame, despite a 19-12 disadvantage in shots. Morin was replaced by
sophomore Danny Mireault, who in turn, was beaten four times before
giving way to Morin again in the final period. Morin was saddled
with the loss, only his second setback in 12 decisions.
As John Lennon once wrote: "Nobody told me there'd be days like
these. Strange days indeed -- strange days indeed!"
Down 8-0 with less than 10 minutes remaining, McGill finally
snapped a shutout bid by Pats netminder Jean-Christophe Blanchard,
who was named as the game's first star after registering a very
solid 40-save performance and improving his record to 13-4.
Francis Verreault-Paul, the OUA's leading scorer with an 18-19-37
record, broke the goose-egg on the power play at 10:55. Teammate
Guillaume Doucet added his 15th of the campaign, also with a
man-advantage, at 19:28.
Rounding out the scoring for the Patriotes was Steve Bellefleur,
Francis Charland, Nicolas Desilets and Olivier Donovan.
McGill, which has lost back-to-back game for the first time since
Nov. 21-22, 2008, fell to 16-4 with eight games remaining before
playoffs. They hold a precarious one-point lead on the Pats
(15-3-1), who have a game in hand. UQTR will host Carleton on
Friday and McGill is slated to host the Nipissing University
Lakers, an expansion team with a 7-11-2 record, from North Bay,
Ont., on Sunday (Jan. 24) at the unusual starting time of 5 p.m.
The CKAT-AM 600 radio broadcast of the game will be available on
the internet through the McGill Leaguestat live stats scoreboard or
via: www.600ckat.com.
CONCORDIA 3, CARLETON 2, SO
At Carleton, Marc-André Element scored the shootout winner
to lift the Concordia Stingers (5-13-2) to a 3-2 win over the host
Ravens (12-6-3).
The Stingers fell behind 2-0 before rallying. Alexandre Monahan and
Peter James Corsi scored for Concordia.
Scoring for Carleton were Brandon MacLean and Yves Bastien. For
MacLean it was his 10th goal of the season.
The Ravens had a five-game win streak, including a pair of wins
over CIS Top 10 ranked McGill and UQTR.
RMC 4, QUEEN'S 1
At RMC, Richard Lim scored a pair of goals to lead the Paladins
(5-12-3) to a 4-1 win over their cross-town rival Queen's Gaels
(11-10-1).
Lim also added an assist for a three-point effort. Also scoring for
the Paladins were Jeff Oke and Mitchell Smith.
David Chubb netted Queen's lone goal.
Source: McGill Redmen with files from OUA Communications
