First win of the new season

The Mount Royal Cougars men’s hockey team opened the season this past weekend with a two-game set versus the Briercrest College Clippers in Caronport, Saskatchewan.

In Friday night’s affair, the story of the game was Clippers goaltender Jesse Chenard, who played absolutely brilliantly, making 63 saves, including 24 in the first period alone.
Chenard finished the game with 63 saves on 65 shots, leading his team to a 2-2 finish against the Cougars, despite being badly outshot.

The Cougars opened the scoring at 10:21 in the first period on the man advantage, as Jason MacDonald beat Chenard to make it 1-0 Cougars. The Clippers answered just two minutes later, when Matthew Chenard was able to beat netminder Justin Cote with a shorthanded goal to make it 1-1.

In a penalty-marred affair that saw a combined total of 48 penalty minutes between the two sides, both teams were relatively ineffective on the powerplay. The Cougars went 1-for-11 with the man advantage, while the Clippers were 0-for-7.

The second period was more of the same. Penalties took away the game’s rhythm, and Jesse Chenard maintained his strong play, stopping 17 of 18 shots in the period. The Cougars’ Jesse Perrin scored 8:27 into the second period to make it 2-1 for the Cougars. Mount Royal would hold the slim one goal advantage until the 18 minute mark of the third period, when the Clippers’ Craig Cornelsen beat Cote to tie the score at 2-2.

Overtime would solve nothing as the Clippers escaped their home opener with a 2-2 draw, despite being outshot 65-24.

Head coach Jean Laforest was happy with his team’s efforts, and thought the squad played well enough to earn two points.

“Their goaltender had a tremendous game on Friday night. I thought we played really well, well enough to have won that game, but he did an outstanding job for them,” said Laforeest. “We need to get some more traffic in front of the net and make his life more difficult on Saturday.”

In the second game of the series, the Cougars were able to enact their game plan and solve the Clippers goaltender Chenard in yet another penalty-filled affair.

The bad blood between these two teams continued right through Saturday, as the Cougars had 98 minutes in penalties in the game, including two major fighting penalties, and seven
ten-minute misconducts. The two teams combined for a whopping 166 penalty minutes.

The Cougars’ Barry Horman had four points on the night (2G, 2A) and Vinny Muchalla added two goals as the Cougars won decisively, 7-2.

Justin Binab added a goal and two assists, and Eric Galbraith had one goal and one helper in a game that certainly saw the Cougars improve with the man advantage, going 4-8 on the powerplay.

Jesse Chenard played another strong game for the Clippers, making 43 saves on 50 shots, but simply could not produce the magic of the previous night, as the Cougars’ forwards camped out in front of the crease all nigh, making for a long evening for the home-town keeper.

Dan Spence made the start in net for the Cougars Saturday night. The former Calgary Hitmen goaltender stopped 15 of 17 shots for the Cougars’ first win of the season.

The Cougars will play a home-and-home series this weekend against the NAIT Ooks. The season home-opener will be at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 15 at the Flames Community Arenas. The Cougars will travel to NAIT for a 7:00 p.m. game on Saturday, Oct. 16.