Gordon Anderson
Special to the Times
PETERBOROUGH—Prior to their opening game this morning, Muskie head coach Shawn Jourdain stood behind the bench and mused about playing a team he’s never seen before and the challenges that can present.
While that’s standard operating procedure in a tournament of this format, one thing that hasn’t happened in the last number of years for the seventh-ranked Muskies is a victory to kick off the all-Ontario championships.
Until today.
The black-and-gold beat the 20th-ranked St. Martin Mustangs (Mississauga) 4-1 in Pool ‘E’ action at the 2012 OFSAA ‘A/AA’ showdown in Peterborough.
Though happy with the win, Jourdain thought it was a one of the worst efforts he’s witnessed in a while. There were zero style points awarded, but a win is a win.
“We just got away from the game plan,” he remarked. “Whether it was excitement or nerves?
“We have to figure that out, as a coaching staff, to get us where we need to be,” he stressed.
For Robbie Rea, the win also was significant in other ways.
He has played on other Fort High teams he thought were more talented overall than the 2011-12 edition but, for some reason, those clubs were getting dissected in the first game at OFSAA and they could never pick up the pieces and move on.
The senior defenceman felt this morning’s victory in their opener would go a long way in calming things down in the locker-room and on the ice.
“[The win] will rise up the hope of a lot of the veterans and probably get the rookies settled down as well, too,” he noted.
The opening 10 minutes was like target practice at the local shooting range as the black-and-gold had numerous scoring chances to end the suspense early, but St. Martin’s goalie Patrick Maziarz made a number of quality stops.
As usually happens, when you let a lesser opponent hang around long enough, they will wrestle away some of the momentum and use it for their own good.
And sure enough, the Mustangs took a 1-0 lead on a power-play goal with 4:08 left in the opening period.
A shot from the left point hit a mass of bodies in front of Muskies’ net and David Bolarinho wedged the puck over the left shoulder of starting goalie Scott Parsons.
To Fort High’s credit, though, they stuck with it and were rewarded with two quick goals early in the second.
Chris Bobczynski capitalized on a turnover in the Mustangs’ zone and went top shelf at 2:24. Just 1:11 later, Rea slammed home his own rebound off a 2-on-1 rush.
The rest of the period took on a river hockey theme, with tons of turnovers, scoring chances, and two teams basically just going for broke.
As a consequence of the free-wheeling style, the Muskies were plenty loose in their own end. They allowed four 2-on-1s, a 3-on-1, and made poor decisions with the puck but got away with them.
“We’ve always had a problem in our own end,” Rea admitted. “We’ve made lots of changes to make things easier on ourselves in getting the puck out.
“We’re just hoping we come together and flow like we did in our playoffs,” he added.
“Get back to that mentality of getting out of our zone easier and staying in the [opponents’] end.”
Riding the same scenario as the second period, the black-and-gold got two quick goals in the third and steered the bus to the garage for the win.
Tyler Mosbeck scored a power-play goal at 7:15 on quick wrist shot, in tight, to make it 3-1.
Then just 42 seconds later, Hunter Leishman fought through the traffic and sludge in the crease and tossed in a rebound to close out the scoring.
Jourdain enjoyed the win, but saw a few things his team will need to clean up if they want to reach the quarter-final round on Friday.
They picked up seven minor penalties, including a 16-second 5-on-3 for the Mustangs just over three minutes after getting the 2-1 lead.
“That’s been our biggest problem all year long [penalties],” Jourdain said.
“We’re good at penalty-killing because we do it a lot.”
The Muskies hit the ice again tomorrow at 8:15 a.m. (EDT) against the host Holy Cross Hurricanes, ranked 12th, then will face top-ranked Glendale (Tilsonburg) at 6:30 p.m. (EDT).
The black-and-gold will close out pool play Friday at 10:15 a.m. versus 13th-ranked Kincardine.
The top two teams from each pool advance to the quarter-finals later Friday.
