No Gas in the Tank

Stingers Handed Big Loss After Big Win Night Before

SportsDavid Murphy — Published February 7, 2012

The euphoria of victory was short-lived for Concordia’s men’s hockey team over the weekend, losing 5-3 to the Ottawa Gee Gees the day after beating rivals McGill.

With just 14 hours between games, the Stingers got off to a slow start in the first, after only recording five shots. Fortunately, goalie Peter Karvouniaris was on his toes and kept the game scoreless going into the second.

It was Concordia who opened the scoring when Francois Lanctot-Marcott scored on a gaping net after Ottawa goalie Russell Abbott coughed up the puck while trying to play it to one of his teammates.

A minute after the goal it looked like things were going the Stingers’ way after Gee Gees forward Steve Blunden barged into Karvouniaris and gave Concordia the powerplay. On the goalie interference play, he was hit hard by the Blunden and apparently suffered a concussion, but decided to play through it at first.

“They ended up scoring two goals because his eyeballs were rolling around,” said Stingers head coach Kevin Figsby. “It’s unfortunate. The guy ran our goalie, he got a two minute penalty and we lose our goalie for the rest of the game.”

The Gee Gees took advantage of Karvouniaris’s injury with some strong forechecking that forced the Stingers to give the puck away, and Ottawa’s Guillaume Donovan sniped one over Karvouniaris’s shoulder from the right-hand boards.

A minute later, Karvouniaris let a similar goal in from the left hand side, but this time it was from Blunden—who racked up an impressive four-point night.

And after letting a third in at the tail end of the period, Nicholas Champion took to the crease relieving Karvouniaris of his duties.

Champion struggled early on letting in a goal, and after trading goals and a half-hearted attempt at a comeback, the Gee Gees hung on comfortably.

Ottawa coach said the Stingers didn’t have the excuse of playing the night before. They should have been physically able to play back-to-back games. “Maybe today they weren’t prepared mentally, but psychically there’s no problem playing last night and today,” said head coach Réal Paiement.

Figsby, however, disagreed, and blamed the schedule. “He can say that. He didn’t play last night so it’s easy for him to say. He’s entitled to his opinion, we’ll see how they do against McGill next week,” he said..

But Stingers captain Eric Begin said fatigue shouldn’t be the excuse.

“I don’t buy it. We play 28 games a season, we don’t play 82 like the pros. We have to be ready for the 28 games we got,” said Begin.

Begin is still confident the team can make the playoffs, but they have to play rivals McGill in the 25th annual Corey Cup at home on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m., and at Carleton on Feb. 11.