It was a rough start for the Varsity Blues men’s hockey team at Varsity Arena last Friday. Despite out-shooting the Guelph Gryphons by a near 2-to-1 margin in the first period of their season opener, several defensive miscues led the Blues to an early deficit. The team fought back, going into the first intermission with a 2-2 tie.
“We didn’t start off very well,” conceded long time head coach Darren Lowe. “We were a little nervous in the first period. But we got through [it] which I thought was really important. We played well in the second period.”
The Blues shook off their initial nerves to net a 7-3 victory over the visiting Gryphons. The four-goal outburst in the second period was led by talented first-year forward Byron Elliott, who notched the eventual game-winner on his third tally for the hat trick. Also scoring for the Blues were rookies Kyle Ventura and Paul Dupont, while fourth year forward Joe Rand capped the scoring in the third period.
“It feels good to get started on a good note,” grinned Elliott after the game. “[It’s] better than not getting any points at all.”
“It’s really exciting to see some of our first year guys scoring today like Dupont, Ventura, and Elliott,” said sophomore goaltender Russ Brownell, who made 21 saves for the win for Toronto. “That’s a great sign for us and I hope we can just keep it going.”
The go ahead goal for the Blues was scored two minutes into the second period on a beautiful pass out of the Blues’ zone to Kyle Ventura, who made no mistake on the partial breakaway. This goal was the result of the Blues playing a fast fore-checking game, noticeably absent from the first period, but soon became a constant source of frustration for the Gryphons. Consistently outplayed, the Gryphons were unable to control their emotions and fell into penalty trouble, highlighted by the gross misconduct assessed to Guelph’s Barrett Brook at 16:07 of the second period. The Blues used these opportunities given by Guelph to quickly pot their fourth and fifth goal to finish 3-for-6 on the man advantage. Toronto closed out the middle period with a short-handed marker from Dupont while Rand was in the box for tripping.
Despite warnings from the coaching staff going into the final period, a stream of sloppy penalties plagued the team. Only the brilliance of the penalty-killing and goaltender Brownell’s stand-up play kept the Blues from falling into their own trap. Emotions continued to run high after several confrontations broke out between the players, cumulating to a ten-person scrum along the right boards that delayed the end of the game by a few minutes as officials worked to separate players.
“We kind of started settling down even though we were supposed to play the whole 60 minutes,” said Elliott. “We were doing some stupid things, [taking] bad penalties; but for the most part we just kind of laid back. We didn’t keep pushing and pushing.”
With more than half of its roster either first or second-year players, the game was a lesson in development for the Varsity Blues. With likely growing pains, there is plenty to look forward to from this young energetic group.
The Varsity Blues hockey team are now 2-0 on the season, defeating the Brock Badgers 3-1 at Varsity Arena on Saturday. First year forward Claudio Cowdrey scored the game-winning goal on the power-play in the second period, while Russ Brownell made his second consecutive start with a stellar 34 save-effort, and was named Blues player of the game.
