Muskies stymied by Matador goalie

It is one of most perplexing riddles in all of hockey: how to solve a hot goaltender?
Despite their best efforts, the Muskie boys’ hockey team could not solve the riddle that was the Mathieu-Martin Matadors’ goalie as they fell 2-1 to the New Brunswick team in the semi-finals of the Winnipeg High School Hockey League’s Tournament of Champions on Saturday night.
“I think we played pretty darn good hockey again,” Muskie head coach Shane Bliss remarked. “We just couldn’t get the puck to go in for us.
“The New Brunswick team especially had great goaltending,” he added. “They had a couple of really big goalies that covered a lot of the net.”
The semi-final loss marked the second time in three days that the Muskies had been unable to beat the Matadors. The first was a 4-2 defeat in round-robin play Thursday night.
“The first time we lost to them, I think we outshot them 51-7,” Bliss said. “It’s not that they were a bad team, but our boys were really up for the game, ready to go, and up to the challenge.
“We just made a couple of really bad errors—a couple of giveaways at the far blueline—and they carried it in on the breakaway and scored.”
Bliss said the black-and-gold also outshot the Matadors the second time they played them.
“It wasn’t as lopsided as the first time but we had trouble getting the puck in their net against their goalie.
“He was a good goalie.”
The semi-final loss was particularly frustrating as not only did it eliminate the Muskies from championship contention, it also robbed them of the chance to exact revenge against the St. Paul’s Crusaders.
The Crusaders, who were awaiting the winner of the Muskie-Matador game, had defeated the Muskies 6-1 in the final of a tournament in Brandon in late November—a loss still fresh in the minds of the players and coaches.
Bliss is hoping this most recent loss only serves to hammer home a message the Muskie coaches have been preaching all season—namely that the team needs to play mistake-free hockey if they are to beat good teams.
“We’ve been playing a lot of hockey teams and getting away with little things,” he said. “But over the holidays we played seven games and if we made a mistake, we paid for it.”
The Muskies advanced to the semi-finals courtesy of a 4-3 win over the St. John’s Ravenscourt Eagles on Friday night.
Taylor Jorgenson, Kyle Turgeon, George Halverson, and Brian Glavish each scored for Fort High in that one, with David Moen earning the win in goal.
The black-and-gold had split their two round-robin games earlier in the week, winning their opener Wednesday by a 4-2 score against the River East Kodiaks.
Matt McLellan, Turgeon, Jorgenson, and Patrick Bobczynski were the goal scorers while Moen earned the win.
But as previously mentioned, the Muskies dropped a 4-2 decision to the Matadors in their second round-robin game Thursday night.
Ryan Witherspoon and Glavish tallied for the black-and-gold while Richard Wieringa took the loss in goal.
The Muskies will be looking to get back into the win column tomorrow (Jan. 11) when they travel to Ely, Mn. to take on the Timberwolves.