The UNB Varsity Reds men's hockey team met the St. Thomas Tommies on the Aitken Centre for the first game between the cross-campus rivals of the regular season.
It was a highly contested match-up, and one that saw the V-Reds trailing the Tommies for much of the game.
UNB opened up the scoring early when Dylan Willick posted the first goal of the night - and his third of the season - at the seventh minute. The assist went to RD Chisholm and Matt Boudens.
St. Thomas answered just over seven minutes later. Connor Sanvido got one past V-Reds goalie David Shantz, with the assist from JC Campagna and Bryce Milson.
The V-Reds tied it up early in the second. Philippe Maillet found the net with an assist from Philippe Halley.
The score wouldn't stay even for long. The Tommies scored two goals in quick succession, both on the power play. Campanga scored first at 7:52, with an assist from Marc-Andre Levesque and Brendan Childerley. Around thirty seconds later, the Tommies scored again. This time Colin Martin had the goal with the assist from Felix Poulin and Connor Sanvido. Suddenly, UNB was down 2-4.
Jordan Murray answered back quickly for the Varsity Reds, bringing the score within one at 10:11. The assist went to Randy Gazzola and Rob Mignardi. UNB would even the score out again at 19:22 when Maillet posted his second goal. It was one of the prettiest ones of the evening - a neat bit of stickhandling that ended with a clean shot past the Tommie goalie. The assist went to Gazzola and Cam Critchlow.
The third period opened with St. Thomas pulling out ahead again less than three minutes in. Jason Cameron found the net with an assist from Levesque and Matt McLeod, and UNB was down 4-5.
UNB would own the scoreboard for the rest of the third period. First, Willick would post his second goal of the evening and tie the score at 5 at around eight minutes in. The assist went to Boudens and Matt Petgrave. Just over five minutes later, Cam Braes would find a way to put it in the net, and the V-Reds pulled ahead. The assist went to Cam Brace and Boudens. Finally, Maillet would get the hat trick, scoring his third goal on the power play with an assist from Gazzola and Murray at 15:45.
UNB head coach Gardiner MacDougall says the evening's events were a bit of a lesson for the team.
"We gotta be sharper in the details," he said. "Our special teams gotta be better, but they came through. Our power play came through when it counted."
But, he adds, there are always things to improve on.
"We gotta have a more positive start. Every game here is a four point game. You don't want to throw away minutes. So we can learn a lesson here, and fortunately we learned the lesson by getting the win."