Fullerton saves best for big games

V-Reds | Backstopped UNB to national title as a rookie at 2009 tournament

Travis Fullerton gets the best compliment a goaltender can receive: He just wins.

Throughout his hockey career, the Riverview native has shown he often plays his best when a big game is on the line.

Fullerton helped the Moncton Flyers claim the New Brunswick major midget championship in 2004 in one of the greatest comebacks in provincial hockey history. The Flyers came back from a 7-1 deficit against the Fredericton Canadiens, winning the next four games - three of them in overtime - to capture the first-to-reach-eight-points New Brunswick final 8-7.

He once made 71 saves for the Moncton Beavers in a Maritime Junior Hockey League playoff game, a triple overtime victory over the Miramichi Timberwolves in 2005. The Beavers, who barely made the playoffs, upset the first-place Timberwolves in the series.

He was the difference maker in a Quebec Major Junior Hockey League playoff series between his Saint John Sea Dogs and Acadie-Bathurst Titan in 2008. Fullerton was brilliant in helping the then-young Sea Dogs franchise advance to the third round of the QMJHL playoffs for the first time.

But no performance was bigger than two years ago this week. Only a rookie, Fullerton backstopped the University of New Brunswick Varsity Reds to a Canadian Interuniversity Sport men's hockey championship. Fullerton stopped 28 shots, including several clutch saves late in third period, as UNB beat the Western Ontario Mustangs 4-2 in the national final.

Another golden opportunity awaits this week.

The Varsity Reds host the CIS Cavendish University Cup championship tournament, which begins tomorrow at Fredericton's Aitken Centre. UNB, the top-seeded team, meets the sixth-seeded Calgary Dinos in its first preliminary round game tomorrow night.

Fullerton will be asked to carry the load in net.

The 23-year-old posted a CIS-best 1.60 goals-against average and topped the Atlantic University Sport conference with a .928 save percentage this season. He finished with a 15-4 regular-season record and five shutouts.

Not bad for a goalie selected in the 14th round, 213th overall, in the 2004 QMJHL draft.

"I feel like I've really adjusted to how this team plays since my first year here. For about half a season after coming out of junior, there was quite an adjustment period for me," said Fullerton, in his third year at UNB.

"I've learned to be really consistent. You don't have to steal the show every night, but you should be consistent on a nightly basis. We only play 28 (regular season) games, so there's not any reason you can't play well every night and that's what I've tried to do."

Fullerton calls the Varsity Reds - who have been ranked first in the country for the past 10 weeks and have a 35-8 overall record against CIS opponents - the best defensive team he has ever played behind.

"It's incredible. Every guy will drop to block shots and they talk really well on the ice," he said. "It's a really great team to play behind and they make my job much easier on a lot of nights."

Many of Fullerton's top hockey memories come from UNB's national championship victory in 2009 in Thunder Bay, Ont., one year after the Varsity Reds lost 3-2 to the Alberta Golden Bears in the CIS gold-medal game in Moncton.

Fullerton joined UNB in the fall of 2008 after playing two and a half years in the QMJHL with Saint John and Lewiston MAINEiacs. After a slow start in his rookie season, Fullerton rebounded and strung together a shutout streak of 292 minutes, 39 seconds at one point, and helped the V-Reds to their second national title in three years. He was named to the CIS tournament all-star team.

"That was pretty awesome. Any time you win a championship, any hockey player will tell you that it's an amazing feeling to win the last game of the year," he said.

"That was a really fun tournament and I'm excited for the guys this week who have never had a chance to experience something like that. For the guys who have been there before, it's another opportunity to do it again."

The Varsity Reds claimed the AUS championship last week, outlasting the St. Francis Xavier X-Men in five games in the best-of-five conference final. The win avenged last year's disappointment that saw UNB have a perfect season ruined by St. FX in the second last game of the regular season before getting swept by those same X-Men in an AUS semifinal.

"We would all be lying if we said that every game we played against them this year, that we really, really didn't want to beat them," Fullerton said of St. FX, which received a berth in this week's CIS tournament as AUS finalist.

"(This year's conference final) was an amazing series that went back and forth. We would think we had them and they just kept coming back at us. I'm not surprised they are in this tournament and I wouldn't be surprised if they make it to the final."

So disappointed in the early playoff exit a year ago, Fullerton had little interest in watching the CIS tournament on television.

"It was no fun to watch Alberta and Saint Mary's play in the final. That was tough on everyone, but I think we learned a lot from that," he said. "It's cliché, but sometimes you have to lose before you learn how to win and I think we came back much more hungrier to win the AUS this season."

The Varsity Reds are 21-1 against CIS opponents on home ice this season, but Fullerton knows first-hand the road to a national championship isn't an easy one.

"When we played in 2009, we just got on a roll and the tournament goes by so quickly. You can only play three games, so you hope to get on a roll and by Sunday, you're in the championship game. "To play in the championship game at home would be an amazing experience."