Stingers Hockey Previews

What’s to Come From Your Stingers Hockey Teams

SportsDaniele Iannarone — Published August 26, 2014

Men’s Hockey

The Concordia Stingers men’s hockey team will be back on the ice with a new captain. Five-year veteran and former team captain George Lovatsis has graduated and will no longer be part of the team.

As a result, third-year player Olivier Hinse has been named team captain, and he will try to lead his team to back-to-back playoff appearances. The Stingers playoff appearance in 2014 was their first in three seasons.

“Olivier is that guy that the players rally around,” said head coach Kevin Figsby.

“He was in the top ten scorers in [Canadian Interuniversity Sport] hockey and in the top five in [Ontario University Athletics], our top scorer, and now he’s going to be our captain going into our third year. That certainly bodes well for the leadership of the team.”

The Stingers have been hard at work with recruiting during the offseason, recruiting numerous players from the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, including forwards Marc-Olivier Brouillette, Olivier Jodoin, Scott Oke, Victor Provencher, and defensemen François Godin and Francis Turbide.

After missing the playoffs for two seasons, the Stingers qualified for the playoffs in their 2013-2014 campaign as a sixth seed, but got eliminated by the McGill Redmen in two games. Figsby, Hinse and the entire Stingers team will be determined to qualify for the playoffs once again and make a run for the championship.

The Stingers will begin their season on Oct. 3 at Carleton.

Women’s Hockey

In a division where four out of five teams qualify for the playoffs, the Stingers women’s hockey team ended their 2013-2014 season by sneaking into the playoffs as the fourth seed before being pitted against the powerhouse McGill Martlets in the first round.

The Stingers took a lead in both games, but went on to lose them both and thus lost their best-of-three series, ending their season.

Despite accumulating a total of 10 points last season, the Stingers have many reasons to be satisfied with their performance.

Under longtime head coach Les Lawton, the team managed to accumulate more points than they had in the previous two seasons and managed to qualify for the playoffs, something they had failed to do since 2011.

“We were competitive last year,” said Lawton. “Even though our record wasn’t what we wanted it to be, the games were all quite close for us.”

While Lawton acknowledges that the team is going through a rebuilding phase, he is nothing short of optimistic.

“We’re pretty excited,” said Lawton. “We’ve recruited at every position. We had a relatively young team last year, we have a lot of players who are coming back.”

The Stingers will have four veterans departing their squad for their upcoming campaign, but they’ve since replenished their squad with 10 new recruits, including Audrey-Anne Allard, the younger sister of defenseman Marie-Joelle Allard.

This Stingers team will only have two fourth-year players on this squad, meaning the team will endure some growing pains and many of the younger players will be pressed into service, as they look to reach the playoffs for the second consecutive season.

The team will play a series of pre-season games, and a tournament, before the season kicks off on Oct. 17 when they visit the Carabins at Université de Montréal.