On Oct. 10, Carleton Ravens men’s hockey fell to their rivals the McGill Redmen 5-4 in a high-tension game. The Ravens opened their season at the Ice House with 175 people in attendance.
The Ravens came out flying and controlled most of the play in the first period.
Carleton was able to crack McGill’s goalie Jacob Gervais-Chouinard nine minutes into play with a wrist shot from Jeremie Fraser that bounced off of forward Ryan Van Stralen and crept into the Redmen’s net.
Capitalizing on a power play that had a shaky start, Michael McNamee notched the rebound from the initial shot that he managed to tip, giving the Ravens a 2-0 lead.
“McGill had an aggressive penalty kill and may have surprised us a bit to start off. With talent and intelligent players like we have, we just have to trust our instincts and support each other all over the ice,” McNamee said.
Thirty-three seconds into the second period, McGill’s Liam Heelis put the Redmen onto the scoreboard with a power play goal.
The play was followed by a split pass from Redmen’s Samuel Labrecque to Mathieu Pompei who beat Raven’s goaltender Patrick Killeen to make the score even at 2-2.
The tension was high at the end of the second period with some big hits and visible agitation between the rivals.
Entering the third period on a power play, McGill pulled ahead with a one-timer from Labrecque 21 seconds in.
First-year Raven Brett Welychka stepped up to answer six minutes into the third during a power play, hammering the pass that found itself in the back of McGill’s net.
The Redmen would summon two more goals in the third, with a wrist shot from David Rose with less than seven minutes and then an empty net goal at 18:40.
The last goal of the game would come from Welychka who fired another heavy one-timer through traffic and past McGill’s netminder in the final minute of play. Final shots on net were 26 for Carleton and 35 for McGill.
Head coach Marty Johnston commented on consistency needing to be improved in order to move forward from the loss to McGill.
“We have to be consistent, I think that our second period kind of hurt us in character, there was a little bit of a momentum shift there and it takes 60 minutes to win a hockey game,” Johnston said.
Two notable CIS debuts for the Ravens were forward Brett Welychka who notched two goals and Jeremie Fraser who tallied four assists Saturday evening. Teammates Connor Boland, Brett Gustavsen, Brent Norris, Curtis Meighan, and Alex Boivin also made their CIS debuts for Carleton.
McNamee said he thinks the first-years will learn every game is important in the short CIS season.
“For first years, it’s just important to understand that every game is important. With such a short season, getting wins is essential even early in the season,” McNamee said.
The Ravens are scheduled for two home games. The first against the RMC Paladins (1-2-0) on Oct. 16 at 7 p.m, followed by the Laurentian Voyageurs (0-0-0) on Oct. 17 also at 7 p.m.
