By: Robert Foreman
After a last minute goal drove the hockey game into overtime, the Ryerson Rams men’s hockey team lost to the Western Mustangs when the puck ricocheted into the net on an errant shot.
The high intensity hockey game resulted in a 1-1 score, and an overtime period that lasted just over a minute before Western found the back of the net.
The puck, which wasn’t originally headed for the net, bounced off of defenseman Keevin Cuttings shoulder and over goalie Troy Passingham who said he didn’t even see it before it went into the net.
“[The shooter] just kinda threw it at the net and it was definitely going wide,” he said. “But it got a lucky bounce and that’s just how you gotta score sometimes,” Passingham said.
Tonight’s game was the last regular season game for Passingham, along with Mitch Gallant, Brian Birkhoff, Jason Kelly and Victor Terreri, who are all graduating after this season.
Passingham said that the thought of it being his last game got to him at the beginning of the game before he was able to get in the right mindset.
“It was a little nerve-racking at the start cause you’re kinda thinking about everything that’s gone on over the years but once you get in the game, it’s just another game and you gotta focus,” he said.
Gallant, on the other hand, said that the emotional aspect of his last regular season game as a Ram has not hit him yet.
“[It] doesn’t really feel like a last game too, too much,”Gallant said. “It’ll feel a little different when it’s all over and I’m not coming to the rink every day, but it just felt like another game.”
The game itself was undersold by the scoreboard as the exciting game that it was. Despite only one goal from each side, the two teams played very intense hockey with hard hitting, and one on one battles with llots of crashing around the net. But Rams head coach Graham Wise would say that this game was anything but physical.
“I’ll show you physical hockey, go look twenty years ago… physical is hits in open ice and you can hear the boards slam and of course today, the refs give penalties with the boards make any noise,” wise said.
With the Rams holding the Mustangs to only two goals out of 36 shots on net, and Michael Fine scoring a goal in traffic, they were able to hold their own against the second place team in the league.
While Wise says that they were a team that they were expecting to come in hungry for first place so that they could gain home-ice advantage in the playoffs, Passingham said that this game was still a good confidence boost for their own playoff run.
“We know that we can play with a team like that now, so it was a good game either way.”
Leave a Reply