Men’s hockey team clinches third place in OUA East
Maclaine Chadwick | Fulcrum Staff
Photo by Justin Labelle
AFTER WINNING AN emotional game against crosstown rivals the Carleton University Ravens on Oct. 26, the University of Ottawa men’s hockey team lost their second game of the weekend to the Université du Québec à Trois Rivières (UQTR) Patriotes 3-2.
Although the Gees managed to tie the match up on two occasions, it was a goal scored only 53 seconds into overtime by UQTR defenceman Raphaël Boudreau that ended the Gees’ second game against the visitors from Trois Rivières.
Gee-Gees head coach Réal Paiement said he thought the team simply came out flat, especially in comparison to the winning game they played against Carleton earlier that same weekend.
“Today wasn’t a question of a lot of mistakes; we came out flat and they stepped on us,” Paiement explained. “When you look at the stats and you are behind on everything—behind on shots, behind on face-offs, behind on scoring chances, behind on hits, it’s usually because you are behind the [entire] play by a fraction of a second.”
Both Gee-Gee goals—from defenceman Dominic Jalbert at 11:04 in the first period and forward Mathieu Ouellette at 4:13 in the third—were scored on power plays where the Gees capitalized on the one-man advantage. Despite this, Paiement cited power plays as the number one aspect of the game he wants to see improved.
“We need to improve our power play, partly to give us some relief sometime. The games when we get it to work, it works well, so we need to really improve that part of the game,” explained Paiement.
Even though the Gee-Gees are still working on some areas of their game, penalty killing isn’t one of them—the Gees killed six of UQTR’s seven power plays. However, Paiement wouldn’t consider penalty kills the team’s greatest skill.
“Our number one asset would be our balance,” he said. “We don’t have the big star; we are just a hard-working team. When we work hard and execute, we do pretty well.”
The loss, which gives the Gees one point, pushed UQTR into second place with 10 points in the Ontario University Athletics East standings, while the Gee-Gees sit closely behind at third place with nine points. The University of Toronto Varsity Blues hold the first-place spot with 11 points.
The Gee-Gees play back-to-back home games this weekend, taking on the York University Lions on Saturday, Nov. 3 at 7 p.m. and the University of Guelph Gryphons on Sunday, Nov. 4 at 2 p.m. at the Minto Sports Complex.
