Mitch Calvert
Missed it by that much.
The Muskie boys’ hockey team returned from the all-Ontarios in North Bay on Saturday without any medals around their necks after finishing the round-robin portion with a 1-2-1 record—good for third place in Pool ‘C’ but one spot shy of advancing to the quarter-finals.
Third-ranked Upper Canada College finished first in Pool ‘C’ with a perfect 4-0 record while St. Marcellinus (2-1-1) grabbed the second playoff berth.
Central Algoma and Senator O’Connor brought up the rear with identical 0-2-2 records.
“It’s definitely a little disappointing,” senior forward Matt DePiero said. “We wanted to at least get out of our pool and compete for a medal, so it obviously doesn’t feel very good right now.”
The first nail in the coffin came in their tournament-opening game versus UCC last Wednesday afternoon.
The black-and-gold went toe-to-toe with the third-ranked Toronto squad until a defensive-zone breakdown led to Adam Woodland scoring with just 26 seconds to play to hand Fort High a heart-breaking 2-1 loss.
The final nail came in their next game Thursday morning, when the Muskies took a 1-0 lead into the third period against the fifth-ranked St. Marcellinus Spirit only to see it evaporate with three unanswered goals to fall 3-1.
St. Marcellinus ended up going all the way to the gold-medal game before settling for silver after a 3-0 loss to Gonzaga (a team they had beaten handily in their league final) while UCC captured bronze with a 4-1 win over top-ranked St. Mary.
Oh, what could have been, indeed.
“A couple bounces here and there and we could’ve won those games, and that’s what makes it so frustrating,” said DePiero. “We showed that we can play with some of the best here and it’s too bad we couldn’t get ’er done.”
The black-and-gold looked a little deflated in their remaining two round-robin games versus 15th-ranked Central Algoma and 18th-ranked Senator O’Connor—understandably so after the emotional roller-coaster that was their opening two losses.
They built a 5-1 lead through two periods versus Central Algoma last Thursday afternoon before hanging on for a 5-4 victory.
“If we had been able to play a game like [that] to start, I think it would’ve helped us instead of playing the top two teams in our division right off the start,” Muskie coach Shawn Jourdain said after the team’s lone win in North Bay.
“I think it would’ve played out differently.”
Friday morning’s finale versus the Senator O’Connor Blues lacked the intensity of earlier games, but the Muskies looked to be on their way to victory before a game-tying goal by Tyler Serio with just 20 seconds left knotted the score 4-4.
Zach McCool scored two power-play goals to pace the Muskies while Blake Wepruk and Taylor Jorgenson added singles in their final games for the black-and-gold.
Blake Cluff kept the Blues in the game with some fantastic goaltending, but mental errors by the Muskies defensively gave the Toronto team way too many scoring chances at the other end on Devon Stromness.
“We could’ve played better and should’ve played better,” Jourdain said. “There are no meaningless games, and I think we just went through the motions [versus Senator O’Connor], plain and simple.”
The Muskies brought a fairly young group to OFSAA, with 10 players in Grade 11 or younger, and that inexperience may have been their undoing in allowing eight third-period goals over the four games.
“We’d get a little bit of a lead and then lay back a bit, and you can’t do that here,” assistant coach Ken Christiansen stressed. “You’ve got to keep going hard, but I’m very pleased with the first two games we played.
“They were both a little better hockey teams than we were, but it came right down to the wire in both and we made them work,” he added.
“I think it was a good learning experience for our younger guys.”
It’s hard not to reflect on what could have been had the Muskies been able to win or even tie one of those first two games, especially since both UCC and St. Marcellinus returned home Sunday with some extra hardware.
“You can’t have a bad game but, at the same time, you’ve got to get some bounces going your way,” Christiansen lamented. “We competed hard, but some late goals and bad bounces went against us.
“It’s always tough to lose, especially for the older guys who won’t be back because you want to do well for them in their final go at it, but we gave it our best shot and that’s all you can ask for,” he added.
