By Dexter LeRuez
The Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) Bold women’s hockey team took to the Mattamy Athletic Centre (MAC) ice on Friday night, resulting in a 4-1 defeat against the University of Toronto (U of T).
The first period of play was filled with penalties. TMU took three penalties and two were called on the Varsity Blues. Nine and a half minutes of shorthanded play occurred in the period.
Despite plenty of time with player-advantages, scoring opportunities in the first period were few and far between. The teams evenly split 14 shots on goal between them as the game remained scoreless.
“We’ve gotta focus on what our job is,” said Bold head coach Lisa Haley. “And part of that is adjusting to the way the standard of the game is being called. We talked about it right away in the first intermission, understanding stick penalties were gonna get called and I know we didn’t adjust enough.”
The penalties continued to affect the Bold heading into the second period. Fifth-year Bold forward Dani Fox joined teammate Gaby Gareau in the penalty box twelve seconds into the frame, forcing TMU to fend off a dangerous 5-on-3 scenario.
TMU’s penalty kill held strong, managing to get them out of the tricky situation.
“I thought we executed really well on that five-on-three and did a great job protecting the slot, in particular the hash marks and down,” said Haley. “You gotta make sure there are no passes going from one post to the other and give your goalie a chance to make the save.”
The busy Bold penalty kill eventually broke down and let in a goal. U of T’s Lauren MacDonnell opened the scoring on a special teams chance early in the second period with Bold rookie Britni Yammine in the penalty box.
The Varsity Blues extended their lead when centres Abby Howland and Kaitlyn McKnight scored in the second and third periods respectively to give the visitors a 3-0 lead.
With just under eight minutes to play in the game, TMU tried to mount a comeback when a shot from Erika Crouse found its way straight into the top of the net for a goal.
“I think the goal got us fired up a little bit,” said Crouse. “I think we need to execute [like] that in all three periods and we will play a great game.”
It was too little too late for the Bold as U of T added one more goal to take the win 4-1.
The loss is the second in a row for the Bold who will be back on the ice Saturday to take on the University of Windsor Lancers. For Haley, Saturday’s game is simply about cleaning up own habits.
“We haven’t seen Windsor in a few years with the way the schedule was regionalized,” said Haley. “And that’s fine, we really have a lot of things to address in our game to get back to the way we want to play whether we are playing Windsor or somebody else.”
UP NEXT: The Bold are back at the MAC October 29th to take on the Windsor Lancers at 5:15 p.m..
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