Stingers Stroll After Trouncing the Night Before

Easy Win Hands Concordia their 10th of the Season

SportsDavid Murphy — Published January 16, 2012

Concordia’s men’s hockey team bounced back from a 9-2 trudging last Friday to beat bottom feeders Royal Military College 6-1 at home on Saturday.

The game was marred by penalties, but for the most part was an easy game for the Stingers scoring twice short handed on a seven-minute game misconduct penalty to George Lovatsis for cross checking and checking to the head.

“We scored six goals, which was excellent, and only gave up one which is what we want to do,” said coach Kevin Figsby. “Every win at this level is a well earned win. RMC played McGill (ranked second in the country) to a 1-0 game right before Christmas, so you can’t take any win for granted.”

Figsby said eliminating odd man rushes helped with the victory, something the team needs to work on.

“It was a key focus today, because we did a horrendous job of it against Queen’s,” said Figsby of the Friday night loss. “But I’m pretty happy after rebounding from it.”

Yet it wasn’t such a cakewalk for the Stingers, reaching home from the Friday night game at 2 a.m. after being caught in a snowstorm. There’s also the fact that some of their key players are out with injuries.

But the fatigue didn’t show early on as the Stingers screamed to a 2-0 lead after the first and completely dominated the second with clever puck play, even with being down a man for seven minutes.

The nicest of the goals went to Stingers left winger Alexandre Monahan’s snipe that put them up 5-0. He walked into RMC’s offensive zone from the right hand boards and snapped one just under the crossbar but above the goalies glove.

The Paladins didn’t show lack of spirit as Eric Lalonde blocked a howitzer from Stingers captain Eric Begin in the third period, only to have him stroll past Lalonde after he limped back up, and starting a pretty passing play to Francois Lanctot-Marcotte for his only goal of the game.

“Eric [Lalonde] is our heart and soul in shot blocking, the guy’s fearless with blocked shots,” said RMC assistant coach Richard Lim. “The guy has a bigger heart than anyone.”

After the block—and subsequent goal—RMC perked up a bit and peppered Concordia’s usual back-up goalie Peter Kavouniaris, but couldn’t get past him in the third, handing the Paladins their third straight loss.

The Stingers look to keep to winning ways when they host Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières on Wednesday. Puck drops at 8:30 p.m.