March 2, 2010 Sports

Game over

Stingers’ Cinderella run comes to an end

by David Kaufmann

Stingers head coach Kevin Figsby rallies his troops one last time. PHOTO ESTHER BERNARD

The Stingers’ mid-season Cinderella story ended in a 4-2 playoff eliminator loss Feb. 21 against the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières Patriotes.

The loss comes just days after the Stingers forced a third game in the best of three series against their Patriotes rivals, defeating them 2-1 at the Ed Meagher Arena.
Concordia was looking to face arch-rivals McGill Redmen in the second round of the playoffs—a lofty goal for a team that had been written off before the new year.

The team had their share of tribulations to contend with this year, after starting the season without eight starting players from last year’s rosters. Michael Baslyk, Nicolas Lafontaine, Simon Pierre Sauvé and Nicolas Daoust were all lost as a result of ineligibility or turning pro.
The Stingers were also plagued with injuries throughout the campaign. Both defenceman Michael Blundon and right-winger Nicolas Sciangula sat out for five games with concussions. Goaltender Maxime Joyal missed eight games and veteran centre Charles-Antoine Messier missed 10.

With this kind of luck, it’s a wonder Concordia managed to get out of the gate after a 0-8 start, much less rack up some major accomplishments.

“The game against Plattsburgh State University [was definitely a high point],” said Stingers head coach Kevin Figsby “We haven’t played them in about 15 years. We got that game back on.”

Hosting the Swedish national junior team, one of the top-ranked in the world, for six days in November also ranked highly, he said.

From then until the end of December, the Stingers went 4-4 to close out the semester. But come the holidays, they were given another golden opportunity as they participated in a tournament in Germany where they played against professional teams. Although reality hit hard with a 12-3 loss to McGill upon their return, the playoffs seemed more of a possibility.
During the break, the Stingers bolstered their lineup with prospects from the junior teams all over Canada. Among the new faces were left-winger Aléxandre Monahan and defenceman Nicholas Goyens from the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League. They also obtained right-winger Peter James Corsi from the Central Hockey League, as well as left-winger Daniel Michalsky from the East Coast Hockey League and centre George Lovatsis from the Ontario Hockey League.

All of a sudden the Stingers were turning early season blowouts into victories, obtaining points in eight of their last 12 games. During this run, an injury to goalie Joyal forced the team to rally behind former fifth-stringer Mike “Rudy” Shrider, who had a brilliant run, winning a pair of starts after riding the bench for three seasons.

When Joyal came back, he was nothing short of stellar himself.

“Max Joyal played as well as I’ve seen a goalie play for this level,” Figsby said of his goaltending. “I can say it was an easy game for me, but guys played well in front of me, and I could see the puck pretty much all night,” Joyal said after stopping 46 shots in game two of their three-game series against UQTR.

His goaltending along with the new additions to the team were enough to drive Concordia all the way to a playoff berth. When they finally played, they struggled against the Patriotes in game one but fought to the bitter end in game two.

Patriotes assistant coach Jean-François Brunelle praised the Stingers’ resolve. “I think they have a good style to play against us. They’re doing well on the fore-check, they’re doing well in the neutral zone and they made us shoot from the outside of the slot,” he said.
Unfortunately their mid-season run was halted in game three as a few second-period goals from the Patriotes crushed the Stingers’ hopes of advancing to the next round.
Overall, Figsby wasn’t too upset with the outcome of the season.

“It’s been a year that’s been a tremendous learning experience,” Figsby said. “So whenever our season finishes, I’m going to look back at the start of the season and the adversity that this team has faced [...] and evaluate from the adversity to the success rate.”
While he was happy his players overcame adversaries on the ice, Figsby was also proud of his team’s success rate off the ice.

“We have 14 players that are around the 3.0-plus GPA and that’s absolutely phenomenal for our program,” he said.