The Carleton men’s hockey team overcame a rocky start to its year to end the first half of the 2014-15 season with a 12-4 record.
The Ravens are currently third in the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) East division and are ranked ninth in the country.
Carleton entered the season on a high after winning the OUA bronze medal and making their first-ever appearance at the Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) men’s hockey championship the previous year.
After winning their first two games of the season, the Ravens dropped their two subsequent games to the Concordia Stingers and Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières Patriotes.
The two losses were the last the Ravens would see in over a month, as they went on to an impressive nine-game winning streak.
The streak was snapped before reaching the illustrious ten-game mark by the Waterloo Warriors.
“We had a bit of a slower start to the year, starting 2-2, and I think part of it was the fact that we went to nationals last year and we thought maybe things would be easy for us,” Ravens head coach Marty Johnston said.
“But they weren’t, and our guys rebounded really well after the slow start and from then on it’s been excellent in terms of work ethic and the group coming together.”
The Ravens are ranked sixth in the CIS in goals per game with 4.19, and seventh in the entire nation with a goals against average at 2.56.
Carleton has proven in the first half of the season that it can once again be contenders for the championships at the provincial and national level.
“We definitely want to keep going in the same direction that we have the first half of the season,” third-year forward Mitch Porowski said. “We want to be even more crisp and continue to get better towards the playoffs.”
The Ravens began the new year with a 3-2-exhibition win over the York Lions on Jan. 3. They resumed their regular season play on Jan. 6 with a 2-1 road victory over the Queen’s Gaels.
