Toronto Metropolitan University's Independent Student Newspaper Since 1967

All Sports

Men’s hockey downs Gaels 3-2 in last home game of 2014

By Andrew Roberts

The Ryerson men’s hockey team (8-3-1) defeated the Queens Gaels (5-5-0) 3-2 at the Mattamy Athletic Centre Friday night. It was the Rams’ last home game of 2014.

After coming off a 6-2 win last night against University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) Ridgebacks, the Rams wasted no time keeping the momentum going. Victor Terreri notched his third goal of the season to give Ryerson the lead. Queen’s tied it with a powerplay marker three minutes later but the Rams regained the lead late in the first on a Lucas Forese powerplay goal.

Ryerson crashed the net the whole game and head coach Graham Wise was pleased with the effort.

“That’s what we told them, put the puck to the net and then get traffic in front… that’s where you got to be if you’re going to score on this guy,” he said.

Heading into the second, Rams forward Domenic Alberga found the back of the net for the eighth time this season, assisted by Rams leading scorer Mitch Gallant and captain Michael Fine. Entering the game, Gallant ranked sixth in points in the Ontario University Athletics (OUA). He now leads the Rams with 18 points, nine goals and nine assists.

The Rams were heavily out shot late in the game and goaltender Troy Passingham had to make some big saves late to secure the win.

“They had a few power plays where they got a lot of shots, and I was just fighting traffic making the saves,” Passingham said.

But he couldn’t stop them all, as Queen’s came flying through the gates to start the third, capitalizing midway through at 12:17. Despite getting outshot 17-8 in the final period, the Rams were able to scrape away the two points.

“I feel our [defence] kept them to the outside a lot,” said Passingham. “We just had to out battle, and luckily we scored one more battle goal than they did.”

Passingham faced 52 shots by game’s end, but Wise said he expected to be that kind of game.

“They’re a real good team, they had a great recruiting year… so we knew it was going to be a kind of run and gun game,” he said.

The Rams are currently riding a three-game winning streak, and are back in action next Friday when they visit the McGill Redmen (8-3-0) at 7 p.m.

 

Leave a Reply