The men’s hockey team is having its best season in years, but appears to have hit a bump in the road.
The Gaels renewed their age-old rivalry with the Royal Military College Wednesday night in Napanee, losing 3-2 in a shootout despite having a 2-0 lead in the second period.
The team has dropped four of its last six games heading into tonight’s game at McGill University.
Despite the loss, the team earned one point to retain its hold on top spot in the Mid-East Division, four points ahead of Toronto and five ahead of RMC.
Head coach Brett Gibson said the team needs to pick its play up to win the division.
“It’s just another disappointing defeat,” he said. “I’m not really happy with where our team is at right now.”
The Gaels opened the scoring late in the first when defenceman Alex Archibald scored on assists from Grant Horvath and Billy Burke. Burke added a power play goal early in the second period to add to the Gaels’ lead.
Thirty seconds later, RMC star Paul Bradley streaked down the wing and buried a backhand shot over Gibb.
Bradley’s goal was no fault of the defence’s, Gibson said.
“Bradley’s goal was just a beautiful goal,” he said. “There aren’t too many guys who can come down the wing and score on the backhand like that.”
Gibson took issue with Richard Lim’s tying goal midway through the third, however.
“We’ve been preaching team defence, and it was just a mental breakdown by experienced players on the team,” he said.
After goaltender Ryan Gibb made four overtime saves out of his total of 31 to preserve the tie, RMC’s Luke Pierce scored the shootout’s only goal.
The team has now lost its last three shootout games. Gibson said the team practices the shootout twice a week, but there are certain things he can’t control.
“When two of my three guys don’t even hit the net, it’s making it real easy on the goalie.”
Gibb said the team let up after the first period.
“We kind of sat back a little bit in the third,” he said. “You can’t win games on defence alone, and that came back to bite us.”
He added the Gaels, who had 30 minutes in penalties, need to work on their discipline.
“The officiating wasn’t its finest. [Wednesday’s referee] loves to call penalties … Nevertheless, we were undisciplined.”
But Queen’s wasn’t the most undisciplined team of the evening. During the post-game handshakes, little-used RMC forward David Thebault threw a punch at Queen’s leading scorer Brady Olsen. No brawl broke out, but a scrum ensued.
According to Olsen, the incident stemmed from a confrontation between Olsen and Bradley, RMC’s leading scorer, late in the third period.
“We have a bit of a rivalry. He got after me from the bench when I was on the ice, and there were some punches thrown from there. I ended up slashing him and RMC didn’t like that,” he said.
“They warned me about the next couple of times we play them.”
Gibson was relatively silent regarding the incident.
“It was really meaningless at the end of the game, and I’ll let the league take care of it,” he said.
All this sets the stage for Wednesday’s rematch between the teams at RMC. But the Gaels have an important test before then—a game against the nationally ranked McGill Redmen in Montreal tonight. The Redmen defeated the Gaels 6-2 Nov. 17.
Olsen said the team relishes the challenge.
“Going into McGill it’s always a pretty spirited battle,” he said. “They definitely don’t shy away from running the score up.”
Tonight’s game will be broadcast live on CFRC 101.9 FM starting at 7 p.m.
All final editorial decisions are made by the Editor(s) in Chief and/or the Managing Editor. Authors should not be ed, targeted, or harassed under any circumstances. If you have any grievances with this article, please direct your comments to [email protected].