By Arfa Ayub, Sports Contributor
The Dalhousie Tigers men’s hockey team ended their exhibition schedule on a good note with a 6–5 overtime victory against Université de Moncton Aigles Bleus on Oct. 9.
“I think we got off to a great start and in the second we let up a bit but we showed a lot of character to come back in the third and we fought hard, pushed into overtime and got it done in overtime,” said Dalhousie forward Trevor Mackenzie.
With 11:23 left in the first, the Tigers scored their first goal of the game, on the power play after Moncton’s Mathieu Bolddut was called for a tripping penalty. The Dalhousie goal was scored by Benoit Gervais, on a wrist shot just outside the middle of the crease.
Mackenzie scored the Tigers’ second just 20 seconds later. The Tigers had built up a 2-0 lead in under a minute.
Moncton quickly replied with a goal of their own just 30 seconds later as Marc-Andre Cote scored on a wrist shot with traffic in front of Dalhousie starting net-minder Bobby Nadeau.
It was a slower pace to start the second. The Tigers would score their third goal of the game on a delayed penalty call.
The score now 3–1, it looked as if the Tigers had total control of the game, but that was soon to change as Moncton’s Francois Rochon scored after carrying down the middle and shooting just outside the crease.
With Moncton starting to gain momentum, the Tigers’ Jordan Burke was called for hooking penalty.
Moncton took advantage of the power play, scoring to tie the game at three
“I think we’ve got a lot of sorting out to do in our own end but I mean offensively, we have been scoring a lot of goals and just hope we can continue to do that but I would like to work on our d-zone coverage,” said Mackenzie.
On the next play, Moncton took the lead. With Moncton’s fourth goal of the game head coach Pete Belliveau had had enough and replaced Nadeau with Josh Disher.
That move seemed to spark the Tigers. With less than 13 minutes left in the game, Shea Kewin scored a great breakaway goal to tie up the game and all was not lost for the Tigers.
Again, the Tigers would give up the lead as Moncton’s Remi Gautreau scored to give Moncton the 5-4 lead.
After calling a time out, the Tigers answered, tying up the game with 5:31 seconds left.
With less than three minutes to go, Dal’s Ben MacAskill took a hooking penalty but the Tigers killed it off to take the game into overtime.
Burke would score the eventual overtime winner three minutes in after receiving a great backhand pass from the point.
“It’s great to score the winner. Just coming back was good. Even though it’s exhibition, this is a highly competitive league and you want to have a good record coming out of exhibition, going strong going into the season,” said Burke.
With the exhibition season over the Tigers are already looking forward to playing Saint Mary’s in the home opener.
“Oh yeah, we are definitely pumped. They are our rivals and it’s our home opener,” said Burke, after the Moncton game.
“It’s just gonna be a huge change from the past few years. We’ve got some great recruits coming in, and our team is looking very strong going into the season,” said Burke.
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