Comeback Falls Short

Frustration dissolves Concordia’s cool

SportsDavid Kaufmann — Published February 1, 2011

Concordia’s men’s hockey team was on a mission last Wednesday when they took on the McGill Redmen at the McConnell arena. For the majority of the game it nearly worked, but unfortunately emotions got the best of both teams as the Stingers couldn’t quite finish the comeback in a 5-4 decision.

“Our game plan was to play very disciplined hockey. Until the ten-minute mark we were in very good shape,” said Stingers assistant coach Peter Bender.

Concordia stifled the Redmen for the first half of the period but gave their opponents an opening when Stinger left winger Mike Stinziani took a bad penalty.

On the ensuing power play, McGill forward Guillaume Doucet rifled a shot past Stingers goalie Raffaele D’Orso for his tenth of the season. But before the announcer could finish saying Doucet’s name, Stingers centre Kyle Kelly buried a shot past McGill goaltender Antoine Tardif to tie the game.

The Redmen nearly regained the lead a few minutes later when forward Francis Verreault-Paul snuck one past D’Orso. But the referees were quick to call that off, as the puck was hit with a high stick.

“They’ve got a dynamite power-play, which you saw in the first. When we took a penalty they scored right away,” said Bender.

Sure enough, it worked in their favor again in the second period when forward Christophe Longpré-Poirier got a bad bounce behind D’Orso seconds after Stingers right-winger Marc-Andre Element got out of the penalty box. A few minutes later the Redmen struck again as forward Simon Marcotte-Legaré caught a passing shot with a deflection.

Just when it seemed like the Stingers would get another thrashing from their cross-town rivals, Concordia fought back. Defenseman Jesse Goodsell began the comeback, connecting on a pass from Kiefer Orsini for his fifth of the season.

The Redmen tried to get some breathing room with defenseman Ryan McKiernan’s goal, but the Stingers responded with a goal of their own when Stinziani scored to send the Stingers into the third trailing 4-3.

Although Element nearly capitalized on a scoring opportunity, the damage had already been done when McGill defenseman Neil Blundon netted his second of the season on another deflection.

The story in the third was of both teams losing their cool. The last five minutes of the game saw 13 players from both teams doing time in the penalty box for everything from hooking calls to a couple of misconduct penalties served by Goodsell and Stingers centre George Lovatsis during a massive scrum.

“Being down by two goals isn’t very easy, especially when it’s against McGill,” explained Stinziani of his team’s lack of discipline late in the game.

Overall, McGill head coach Kelly Nobes wasn’t pleased with his team’s performance. “I thought we were okay. We weren’t great, but we got the job done at the end of the day, which is important with some of our guys missing,” he said. The Redmen were without five of their players as a result of injury or the 2011 Winter Universiade in Erzurum.

Meanwhile, the Stingers were thrilled with the effort they put forth. “The guys hung in well; that was a very good team we played,” said Bender.

“We were playing a simple game, the game you need to play against McGill,” added Goodsell.

The Stingers travel to Three Rivers on February 9, to take on the Université de Québec à Trois Rivières Patriotes. The puck drops at 7:30 p.m.

This article originally appeared in Volume 31, Issue 21, published February 1, 2011.