Mustangs stun top-seeded V-Reds, join McGill in final
March 24, 2012 (FREDERICTON, N.B.) - The fourth-seeded Western Mustangs advanced to the gold medal final of the 50th CIS men's hockey championship thanks to a 3-2 upset win over the defending national champion and tournament host UNB Varsity Reds, Saturday night, in front of a frenzied capacity crowd of 3,750 at the University of New Brunswick's Aitken Centre. The Mustangs (2-0) jumped to a 3-0 lead in the first period and hung on to stun top-ranked UNB and take first play in Pool A in front of the Varsity Reds (1-1) and UQTR (0-2). In Sunday's Cavendish Farms University Cup final at 8 p.m. Atlantic, live on Sportsnet and ssncanada.ca, Western will face No. 2 McGill in a rematch of the OUA conference final, won 4-1 by McGill on March 10th in London, Ont.
It will mark the first CIS title match between OUA rivals since Western edged UQTR 4-3 in triple overtime in 2002 to capture its lone University Cup. The Mustangs last played in the University Cup final in 2009, when they dropped a 4-2 decision to UNB. They had also lost 4-0 to the V-Reds in pool play a year ago. Overall UNB had won 21 straight games against Ontario competition and were on a 10 game winning streak after dominating the AUS play-offs with a 6-0 sweep and winning a convincing 6-1 victory over UQTR in Game 1 of the Nationals.
"I'm glad the game didn't last 10 more seconds. We played every shift like it was overtime. The guys left everything on the ice," said 13-year Western head coach Clarke Singer, who was behind the bench when the Mustangs triumphed in 2002. "We never talked about that (being a David vs. Goliath matchup) as a group," continued Singer. "We've had the opportunity to play UNB three times in the last four years on this stage similar to this... I think maybe people outside our dressing room would bill it as that given the type of history of success they've had wining University Cups but inside our locker room, we were very confident... You could see that by how we started the game tonight and getting up on them early."
Goaltender Josh Unice stood on his head for the second straight night and earned Western game-MVP honours for the second consecutive game. After making 41 saves on Friday in a 3-2 OT win over UQTR, the third-year netminder from Holland, Ohio, stopped 35 of 37 shots fired his way against UNB, including 17 saves in the third period as Western was outshot 19-8.
"I think we even elevated our game (from Friday)," said Unice. "Guys were diving and we had numerous shot blocks and goal mouth scrambles. It's a great attribute of our team. We have a lot of sacrifice in our locker room."
The Mustangs silenced the local crowd with three goals in a span of five minutes and 23 seconds in the second half of the first period. Dominic De Sando of London opened the scoring at 12:25, CIS scoring champion Keaton Turkiewicz of Brantford, Ont., doubled the lead at 15:20 during a 5-on-3 power play and Jason Furlong, also of London, made it 3-0 with a short-handed marker at 17:48.
UNB made it interesting thanks to late power play goals by CIS All- Canadian defenseman Jonathan Harty of Oromocto, N.B., and team captain Kyle Bailey of Ponoka, Alta. Bailey’s goal set a new UNB record for most points in the Nationals and put him top 3 all time in UNB History but the 2 time National Champion would have traded that honour for 1 more goal in this match. UNB had several gilt edged chances in the 3rd but eventually ran out of time.
"It's tough right now," said Bailey, struggling for words following his last game in a UNB jersey. "Obviously, you've done some incredible things over the past five years and one of those things has been you develop an expectancy. I'm sure that there are lots of teams out there that are dancing around happy that we lost right now but in our dressing room... we expect to win... It didn't happen today, it's disappointing and I'm not sure I have an answer."
"The big thing it comes down to at this time of year is execution and when you look back at the game, personally, I just feel like I didn't execute well enough," said fifth-year veteran Luke Gallant of Bedford, N.S., an alternate captain with UNB. "You look around the (dressing) room and it hurts... you expect to win here and when you don't, you haven't completed your objective
." Head coach Gardiner MacDougall, who led UNB to three national titles in five years from 2007 to 2011, was proud of his troops despite the loss. We’ve had some unbelievable positive experiences at the CIS Nationals but if you go to the CIS Nationals well enough times – you can experience heartbreak – that’s life in CIS Hockey.
"Sometimes you can use adversity for an advantage. We certainly had adversity throughout the regular season but today we didn't have that raw energy we needed," said MacDougall. "We probably didn't get that... probably 'til about the 48-minute mark... It was kind of a forced energy... We're a team that wants to put pucks low, have foot races and have puck possession off face-offs. Give full credit to our opponents – they were more determined in a lot of areas. . We didn't jump on enough loose pucks. We didn't quite get our fore-check and puck possession game established."
.GAME NOTES: UNB had a 12-1 record at the National Championships prior to the Western game – losing another heart-breaker in the National Final to Alberta in 2008 when they outshot their opponents by 18 shots. Freshman sensation Shayne Wiebe( Brandon, Mb) missed the tournament with a broken ankle while veteran D Ben Wright (Lethbridge, Alta.) returned to the line-up despite a torn MCL in his knee. Rookie Thomas Nesbitt (Ottawa, Ont.) also returned to the line-up after serving a suspension occurred in Game 3 of the AUS Finals. All 7 games of the tournament were sold out at 3.750 and avid 50-50 sales were close to $50,000 for the event.