Courtesy of host organizing committee / Photo credit Josh Schaefer

SASKATOON (CIS) – The fourth-seeded McGill University Redmen used a pair of second-period goals to power past the No. 6 seeded Carleton Ravens 3-2 in Pool A action at the CIS men’s hockey championship Friday afternoon in front of 8,304 fans at Credit Union Centre.
 
First place in Pool A and a spot in Sunday’s national final will be on the line Saturday at 2 p.m. Saskatchewan Time when McGill (1-0) faces the top-ranked Alberta Golden Bears (1-0), live on Sportsnet 360 and on www.cis-sic.tv.

Carleton sees its season come to an end after going 0-2 in its first-ever appearance at the University Cup tournament. The Ravens lost by an identical 3-2 score against Alberta on Thursday.
 
The Redmen, who edged Carleton in three games two weeks ago in the best-of-three OUA East final, took a 2-1 lead at 2:05 of the second period on a Patrick Delisle-Houde power-play marker. Ryan McKiernan, the CIS defenceman of the year, received a cross-ice pass and quickly centered the puck for Delisle-Houde, who deflected it past Carleton netminder Francis Dupuis.

McGill extended its advantage to 3-1 five minutes later when David Rose pounced on a rebound and slid the puck through Dupuis pads.
 
Carleton came out strong in the third period with their backs against the wall. Joey West cut the Redmen’s lead in half when he potted home a Jacob Gervais-Chouinard rebound. Unfortunately, for the Ravens, two late penalties dampened their chances of tying the game.
 
Jean-Philippe Mathieu opened the scoring at 7:49 of the first period when he caught Dupuis out of position after his goal stick was knocked out of his hands. Dupuis tried to recover his stick after making a kick save on a Neal Prokop attempt, the puck went to the corner where Mathieu collected it and fired a wrist shot over the shoulder of the Ravens goalie.
 
Carleton tied the game in the closing seconds of the opening stanza. The 7,000 school kids in attendance counted down the final 10 seconds of the period, but unfortunately for the Redmen, they were a second too fast. Timothy Billingsley took a shot from the blue line that got past Gervais-Chouinard, who appeared to let up as the kids counted “zero.” The officials went upstairs to look at the replay and confirmed the puck crossed the red line with 0.3 seconds remaining.
 
Kelly Nobes, head coach of the Redmen, preferred to see the humour in Carleton’s first goal in the post-game press conference.
 
“We played the kids count and not the clock but we came out in the second and I thought the second was our best period. I thought we were good, we had a good start today, we weathered the storm a bit at the end of the first and in the third.”
 
The Redmen know they will be in tough against the Golden Bears Saturday but they are prepared for the challenge.
 
“They are a good team they proved it throughout the year, we will need to stick to our game tomorrow, said Rose. “We need to play hard and be on the puck all the time. For us we approach it like a semi-final, it’s a single game and we need to be ready for it.”
 
The loss officially eliminated the Ravens but their bench boss was proud of his troops.
 
“I’m happy with how our guys worked. We lost to two really good hockey teams, they have a rich history and I think that showed,” said head coach Marty Johnston.
 
Gervais-Chouinard celebrated his 22nd birthday with 34 saves in the winning effort, while Dupuis made 35 saves.

“It’s pretty special to get my first University Cup win on my birthday. The guys gave me a great gift today,” said Gervais-Chouinard, who played in the AHL before joining the Redmen this season.
 
Rose was named player of the game for McGIll while West claimed the honour for Carleton.
 
The PotashCorp University Cup, presented by Co-op resumes Friday at 7 p.m. local time with Pool B action between the host and No. 5 University of Saskatchewan Huskies (0-0) and the No. Acadia Axemen (0-1).

SCORING SUMMARY

FIRST PERIOD

1. McG Jean-Philippe Mathieu (1) (Neal Prokop, Benoit Lévesque), 7:49
2. CAR Tim Billingsley (1) (unassisted), 19:59.

PENALTIES:

Mathieu (McG) roughing, 3:49;
McKiernan (McG) tripping, 14:28.

SECOND PERIOD

3. McG Patrick Deslisle-Houde (1) (Ryan McKiernan, Cedric McNicoll), 2:05 PP
4. McG David Rose (1) (Jean-Philippe Mathieu, Neal Prokop), 7:27

PENALTIES:

Durocher (CAR) holding, 1:20;
Laporte (McG) hooking, 3:59;
Cardwell (CAR) high sticking, 5:17.

THIRD PERIOD

5. CAR Joe West (1) (Tim Billingsley), 3:42.

PENALTIES:

Durocher (CAR) slashing, 17:33;
Werthner (CAR) cross checking, 19:10;
Stanisz (CAR) slashing, 20:00;
Deslisle-Houde (McG) slashing, 20:00.

GOALS (by period)
McG 1-2-0: 3
CAR 1-0-1: 2

SHOTS ON GOAL (by period)
McG 12-15-11: 38
CAR 17-10-9: 36

POWER PLAY:
McG 1-4
CAR 0-3

GOALTENDERS
McG – Jacob Gervais-Chouinard (W, 1-0, 36 shots, 34 saves, 2 GA, 60:00)
CAR – Francis Dupuis (L, 0-2, 38 shots, 35 saves, 3 GA, 59:46)
CAR – Empty net (0 GA, 0:14)

PLAYERS OF THE GAME:
McG: David Rose
CAR: Joe West

REFEREES: Pascal St. Jacques, Derek Zalaski

LINESMEN: Nick Bilko, Kelsey Mahoney

ATTENDANCE: 8304

START: 1:02
END: 3:25
LENGTH: 2:23

POOL STANDINGS, SCHEDULE & RESULTS (LOCAL TIME)

Pool A standings (after 2 of 3 games) 

GP W L GF GA PTS
1. ALB  1 1 0 3 2 2
1. McG  1 1 0 3 2 2
3. CAR  2 0 2 4 6 0

Pool B standings (after 1 of 3 games) 

1. WSR  1 0 0 4 2 2
2. SSK  0 0 0 0 0 0
3. ACA  1 0 1 2 4 0

Thursday, March 20
13:00 Pool A #1: Alberta 3, Carleton 2
19:00 Pool B #1: Windsor 4, Acadia 2

Friday, March 21
13:00 Pool A #2: McGill 3, Carleton 2
19:00 Pool B #2: No. 2 Acadia vs. No. 5 Saskatchewan (www.CIS-SIC.tv) 

Saturday, March 22
14:00 Pool A #3: No. 1 Alberta vs. No. 4 McGill (Sportsnet 360 & www.CIS-SIC.tv)
19:00 Pool B #3: No. 3 Windsor vs. No. 5 Saskatchewan (Sportsnet 360 & www.CIS-SIC.tv) 

Sunday, March 23
13:30 Final (Sportsnet & www.CIS-SIC.tv) 

* The webcasts of the 3 televised games will be on pay-per-view basis.

About Canadian Interuniversity Sport

Canadian Interuniversity Sport is the national governing body of university sport in Canada. Every year, 11,000 student-athletes and 700 coaches from 55 universities and four regional associations vie for 21 national championships in 12 different sports. CIS also provides high performance international opportunities for Canadian student-athletes at Winter and Summer Universiades, as well as numerous world university championships. For further information, visit www.cis-sic.ca or follow us on:

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