V-Reds back in the pink
The game was the second annual Pink in the Rink night at the Aitken University Centre to both honour cancer survivors and raise money for cancer research, with the UNB players all sporting pink hockey socks and skate laces, and many also with pink hockey tape on their sticks. Both teams have been playing with a number of key players out with injuries the last few weeks, and the Varsity Reds welcomed back forwards Shayne Wiebe (Brandon, NB) and Tyler Carroll (Strathroy, ON), and goaltender Travis Fullerton (Riverivew, NB), who was making his first start of 2012.
Early UNB pressure led to the first goal when Daine Todd (Stettler, AB) from behind the Acadia goal line banked a shot off the skates of Axeman defenceman Michael Ward (Shippegan, NB) and past goaltender Evan Mosher (Conception Bay South, NL) at 2:16. Each team had two power plays in the period, with few scoring chances. UNB was buzzing the Acadia net in the last minute of the period, and with time running out Antoine Houde-Caron (Trois-Rivières, QC) fired his own rebound into the top corner at 19:59. It was a good period for the home side, out outshot Acadia 13-6.
While not tested a lot in the game, Fullerton was forced to make a big save against sniper Andrew Clark (Brandon, MB) at 5:30. Less than two minutes later at the other end of the ice, Mosher had to make several saves with V-Reds on the doorstep and in the resultant goalmouth scrum Acadia defenceman Travis Gibbons received the extra minor penalty. On the power play, Carroll took a pass from Thomas Nesbitt (Ottawa, ON) and scored from the bottom of the circle at 8:34.
At 10:28 Acadia defenceman Paul Kurceba (Calgary, AB) popped Houde-Caron in the neutral zone before the UNB forward touched the puck, and that drew the ire of several V-Reds who took exception to the play and came to the aide of their teammate in a spirited pushing and shoving match along the board by the penalty box. This time it was Acadia who came out a man ahead after it was all settled. Seconds after Mosher made a brilliant glove save on penalty killer Carroll, the Axemen went up the ice and Clark scored from the slot at 11:45. Chris Culligan (Howie Center, NS) smashed his stick on the UNB net in disgust on the play and was handed a ten-minute misconduct penalty.
UNB got that goal back at 12:12 when Kyle Bailey (Ponoka, AB) whacked at a saucer pass and his off-speed shot dribbled through Mosher. UNB outshot Acadia 16-5 in the middle period.
Just over two minutes into the third period, Nick MacNeil (Creignish, NS) was working the puck behind the Acadia net when he passed the puck out to Nesbitt who quickly snapped it into the top right corner. Immediately after the goal, Acadia head coach Darren Burns elected to replace Mosher with Peter DiSalvo (Oakville, ON). Midway through the period Joe Gaynor ((Goderich, ON) was called for interference and UNB struggled on the power play until they broke into the Acadia zone on an odd man rush and Bailey scored at 11:07. UNB didn’t let up on the offensive zone pressure, and at 15:11 the V-Reds defence fed Geordie Wudrick (Abbotsford, BC) a pass at the far blue line and he went in alone on the breakaway and made a couple of moves before beating DiSalvo five-hole. Shots in the third period were a convincing 14-3 for UNB and 43-14 in the game.
With the 7-1 win, UNB moved back into first place in the AUS standings, tied with Moncton who defeated StFX 2-1. The V-Reds were 2-for-6 on the power play while Acadia went 1-for-6. UNB will host Dalhousie Saturday night while Acadia will continue on to Charlottetown to play UPEI.
Acadia has struggled to find wins at the AUC, and the loss is their 17th in row on UNB’s home ice. Acadia coach Burns wasn’t happy with the loss “against a pretty good hockey team”, but he ready to move on after the game. “We’ve been clipping along pretty good and our guys have been unbelievable the last four or five games and doing a great job. Obviously that was ugly. We’ve gotta kind of erase it. We haven’t really had many bad games per se this year and that was certainly probably our worst collectively.”
Fullerton, playing for the first time since December 30 with a taped and braced knee, said he “felt 100%”. He complemented his teammates “who played unbelievable, almost a perfect game.” The two-time CIS champion goaltender is now 7-0-0 on the season with a 1.90 goals against average. About Fulllerton UNB captain Kyle Bailey said, “I’ve been saying for probably two or three years now that I don’t know if there’s a more underappreciated guy probably across Canada in this league.”
Game Notes: Immediately after the game, defenceman Jonathan Harty (Oromocto, NB) had his hair cut at centre ice for the first time since last February by two winning contestants in a fundraiser for cancer research.