The Frustration Continues

Penalty Woes Lead to Another Women’s Hockey Loss

SportsDavid Kaufmann — Published January 30, 2012

They came, they competed, but they couldn’t stay out of the penalty box.

As a result, Concordia’s women’s hockey team lost 4-3 to the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees—their eighth straight loss—which dramatically hurts their chances of competing in the post-season.

“We’ve got to realize that we have to play with a little more passion and a little more intensity at certain times of the game,” said Stingers head coach Les Lawton.

For the first two periods at least, it seemed as though Concordia did have that passion. After Ottawa forward Dominique Lefebvre opened the scoring midway through the first, ConU left-winger Emilie Bocchia scored a goal at the tail end of the period and banked another at the beginning of the second to make it 2-1.

“There’s a fine line between winning and being afraid to lose. Sometimes we just don’t bring that winning attitude with us,” said Lawton.

Before Bocchia’s second goal had even been announced, the Stingers nearly netted a third, but it was stopped by Ottawa goaltender Tia Marley.

However, Concordia tended to shoot themselves in the foot throughout the rest of the game.

“We had a couple of penalties against us—that has been hurting us for the past couple of games,” said Stingers right-winger Catherine Rancourt.

The Stingers went to the box seven times in the game—a habit they’ve seen throughout the year. But this hurt them particularly in the second and third periods as Ottawa found the net twice while on the power play. The first came after Jaymee Shell’s elbowing penalty; the second after Ottawa enjoyed a 5-on-3 in the third.

The Gee-Gees nearly ran away with the game following that power play when forward Lauren Coxon got a breakaway. Stingers goaltender Marie-Pier Remillard—who kept the game from becoming a blowout stopping 28 of 32 shots—had no problem denying the scoring opportunity with a good save.

With five minutes remaining, Bocchia completed her hat trick after connecting on a pass from Rancourt to put the Stingers back within one, but it wasn’t enough; the team had already dug their own graves with undisciplined play.

As Lawton points out, this is something of a trend for the Stingers of late.

“There’s a fine line between winning and being afraid to lose. Sometimes we just don’t bring that winning attitude with us,” said Lawton.

That aside, the opposition believes the Stingers have some potential.

“The Stingers have a great team. I don’t think the standings show what kind of team they have,” said Gee-Gees head coach Yanick Evola.

As much as Lawton would like to qualify for the post-season, though, he believes his squad might be in too deep.

“We dug ourselves a bit of a hole,” said Lawton. “Hopefully we can get a bit of a run here. The teams we’re up against, we’ve had success [with] in the past,” he added, referring to Carleton University, the University of Ottawa and the Université de Montréal.

With the loss, the Stingers find themselves six points behind Ottawa, who hold the fourth and final playoff spot, with only five games left to play. They will try to rid themselves of their losing ways when they travel to Carleton this Saturday to take on the Ravens. The puck drops at 7:00 p.m.