Brock men’s hockey team seeded fourth
Badgers can still end season with national title after settling for silver at provincial championships
Officially, the eight-team tournament getting underway Thursday in Fredricton, N.B., is the USPORTS University Cup men’s hockey championships. For the Brock Badgers, the competition could be a site for alchemy, a place where silver can be turned into gold. Brock settled for the silver medal at the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) final at a packed Seymour-Hannah Sports and Entertainment Saturday night in St. Catharines. However, a 5-1 loss to the McGill Redmen didn’t dash the Badgers’ hopes of winning a gold medal at the Canadian championships in Marty Williamson’s first season as head coach. Brock and McGill knew coming into the provincial final they both would be going to Fredricton. The big thing to note about Saturday night’s game, in addition to the prestige of winning the Queen’s Cup, was seeding at nationals. Brock is seeded fourth behind the University of New Brunswick Reds, the Alberta Golden Bears and McGill. Rounding out the field are the St. Francis Xavier X-Men, the Saskatchewan Huskies, the Acadia Axemen and Concordia Stingers. Unlike the men’s university basketball championships that wrapped up Sunday in Halifax, where Brock rebounded from a qualifying-round loss with two wins to return home with the consolation title, there are no second chances for Day 1 losers at the Fredericton tournament. A Brock win against St. Francis Xavier on Thursday would send the Badgers into the semifinal round Saturday. A loss would send them home. The bronze and gold medal games are 9 a.m. and 1 p.m., respectively, on Saturday. All quarter-finals, including the Badgers versus the X-Men at noon Thursday, will be streamed online at sportscanada.tv/ usports.
Semifinals and the gold medal game will be broadcast on Sportsnet. In the OUA final, played before a sold-out crowd at SeymourHannah, McGill jumped out to a 2-0 lead by the midway point of the first period. Brock cut the lead in half midway through the second with Sammy Banga and Chris Maniccia setting up Ayden MacDonald who scored on the power play. McGill rounded out the scoring with three unanswered goals, all on the power play. The Badgers added some pressure and had some strong scoring chances early in the final frame, but it was McGill starter LouisPhilip Guindon coming up with some key saves. The Redmen’s Samuel Tremblay was named the OUA Queen’s Cup Championship Game MVP Presented by CCM for his twogoal performance. Guindon made 24 saves for the victory. Brock’s Clint Windsor made 27 saves and was tagged with the loss. The Badgers, who went 14-9-5 in league play before making an impressive 6-2 run in the playoffs, are seeking to become the first Brock team to win a USPORTS men’s hockey championship. Their average of 2.75 goals per game was 26th in the nation, while their 2.48 goals-against average was seventh in the country. Brandon O’Quinn, Josh Timpano, Dexter Weber, Josh Timpano and MacDonald paced the team in points, with 17 apiece. MacDonald scored a team-high nine goals. Windsor was named the OUA West Division goaltender of the year after leading the conference in five categories: games played, 26; starts, 26; minutes 1,530:49; saves, 852; as well as save percentage. In their OUA semifinal playoff series win over top-seeded Guelph, Windsor became the first goaltender in school history to record 1,000 saves in a single season. St. Francis Xavier, the Atlantic University Sports finalist, went 22-4-4 during the regular season before going 3-4 in the playoffs. The X-Men’s last national championship was in 2004. They scored an average of 3.67 goals, while surrendering 2.40 goals per game.