By Rob Foreman
The Ryerson men’s hockey team (2-3) suffered a 3-2 loss against the Lakehead Thunderwolves on Saturday.
The Thunderwolves set the tempo early in the game with their first goal 2:11 into the game.
With Ryerson off to a slow start, the Thunderwolves capitalized and scored a second goal minutes later at 7:11.
The Rams went the dressing room after first period down 2-0. Forward Robert Visca said that they talked about getting more players at the net to try and score off of rebounds against the Lakehead goalie Justin McDonald.
“He is a great goalie, but he was giving up looks in front of the net,” said Visca after the game. “Even after the game we were like ‘we had a bunch of chances’.”
The Rams toughed it out and played a very disciplined game, taking only two penalties for roughing and interference.
It was not until after the Thunderwolves scored their third goal at 9:13 in the second period that Rams began to turn things around.
Less than two minutes late, Visca made the best of a rebound at 10:42 in the second.
With Ryerson on the board the crowd, made up mostly of alumni, began to come more alive as the second period ended with a 3-1 Lakehead lead.
Visca scored the second goal 4:42 into the third of the game off of another rebound from Mitch Gallant.
While the Rams were in the process of making a comeback at the end of the game, head coach Graham Wise said that the fact that the Rams had a weak start was a big issue.
“In todays game we didn’t start working until we were down 2-0, and we got to put a sixty-minute hockey game together,” he said.
The game ended with the Rams aggressively attacking the net in the dying minutes of the game.
With 29 seconds left in the game, the Thunderwolves’ net was covered with players scrambling for the puck. Unfortunately, they were not able to come up with a goal to send the game into overtime.
Wise was optimistic about the loss and wants to use the experience to prepare for future games.
“With any luck around their net we could’ve possibly tied it, but it didn’t happen so you got to learn from it,” he said. “You can’t dwell on it.”
Visca said that over the next couple of days they have to work on getting inside positions, “pucks are just sitting there, and we just got to slide them in.”
Ryerson’s next game is on Thursday when they host the Laurier Goldenhawks at the Mattamy Athletic Center.
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