“Basically, you want to try and keep the game as simple as possible”
Nov. 3 – The Gee-Gees Men’s Hockey Team faced off against the Carleton Ravens at the Minto Recreation Complex. The intense rivalry was on display in a fierce matchup that ended in a win for the Gee-Gees.
The first period was a defensive battle with a ton of big hits, blocks and pressure. The offense was doing good with lots of time on attack and forechecking. Despite our good offence, Carleton played with great zone coverage as four players made a box formation, having one player in front.
The Gee-Gees were playing good defense against the Ravens, with goaltender Frankie Lapenna being the star of the show again making phenomenal saves. “Basically, you want to try and keep the game as simple as possible,” Lapenna said about making saves.
“Sometimes as a goalie you get excited when things happen and then you just try to put something in front of the puck. So, I guess it’s a spontaneous process and I just deal with it as it comes. You deal with it as it comes, that’s what I figured.”
The second period is where the game got more intense as the Ravens offence was smothering the Gee-Gees in their own end. On defender Liam Markhauser’s hooking penalty, the Ravens were able to score their first goal on the power play.
In the same frame,there was a bit of a shoving match between the teams after defender Peter Stratis was hit pretty badly in transition, which resulted in a five-minute penalty for both teams. “These guys, these refs try to do their best,” Head coach Patrick Grandmaitre said about the intensity and penalty issues.
“They feel like if they call everything, they could call two penalties every shift. So they have to kind of decide which ones are the worst ones to call. It is so hard as a coach or as a player to stay level headed through all that stuff. And it happens, it’s resetting and you hope that it happens more to the other team than to us. But you just got to get to work and kill those penalties.”
Lapenna continued to stand on his head for the game, making high glove saves, going spread eagle, and butterfly sliding to stop the puck. There was a two-minute minor penalty on the Gee-Gees for goalie interference, which resulted in another scrap with the Ravens. Carleton got a two-minute minor penalty afterwards which led to forward Luka Verreault hitting a one-timer on the power play to tie the game.
The third period was where both teams were trying to seal the deal, and the intensity went through the roof. This is when Markhauser set up the puck where Verreault tapped it in the net to gain the lead.
“They’re a big team and they try to protect the net front and have a big goalie.” Grandmaitre said. “So it’s kind of simplifying things. It sounds cliche, but just putting pucks on the net and having bodies there. You hope that a puck will get through and that’s exactly what happened in that second goal. It was a nice point shot and they trafficked the front [of the net] and then tipped it. With a good goalie like that, you have to sometimes redirect pucks in or get rebounds, because they’re going to stop the first shot.”
More big hits were on display for both teams with more penalties being committed as well. Yet another scrap occurred where a Ravens player was sent into the boards and as a result, another two-minute minor was handed out. In the last minute the Ravens pulled their goalie, and forward Justin McRae was able to get a breakaway and score the empty-netter to seal the game.
