The Lakehead Thunderwolves mens hockey team and the McGill Redmen fought to a thrilling and very entertaining 3-3 OT Friday night before 3097 fans at the Fort William Gardens in Thunder Bay.
Freshman sensation Mark Soares led the Wolves with two goals and an assist. Lakehead Captain Jeff Richards potted the Wolves other goal; the 110th of his Lakehead career which sets the new goal scoring mark for the Thunderwolves. Tobias Whelan picked up two assists.
McGills goals came from Benoit Martin, Chris Churchill-Smith, and Sam Bloom. Mathieu Leclerc played a strong game for the Redmen adding two assists.
Lakehead now has a 9-4-2 OUA record (11-7-2 overall) while McGill goes to 8-2-3-1 in OUA play (13-5-3-1 overall). McGill outshot Lakehead 35-21 on the night. Both teams drew six minor penalties but neither team could score with the man advantage.
Lakehead netminder Chris Whitley played a very strong game in the Lakehead goal; coming up with a number of big saves. McGill netminder Mathieu Poitras also made some good glove saves in the game.
McGill dominated play for the most part in the first period as the Wolves looked fairly flatfooted until later in the period. Martin put the Redmen up 1-0 at 12:56 after he picked off a Lakehead giveaway in the Wolves zone and fired in his own rebound after Whitley made the initial save. Soares evened it up at 14:39 beating a Redmen d-man and beating Poitras with a low sliding backhander. The assist went to Tobias Whelan. Lakeheads Richards rang a blast off the crossbar to almost set the Lakehead record; which would have to wait until the next period. McGill outshot Lakehead 15-6 in the first.
The Wolves picked it up in the second after initial early pressure by McGill. Churchill-Smith gave the Redmen a 2-1 lead at 4:24 after another Lakehead defensive zone giveaway resulted in a 3-on-1 for McGill. Jeff Richards then scored a lovely goal to set the Lakehead goal scoring record at 12:02 when he used a McGill d-man as a screen and fired a rocket wrist shot that rang in just under the crossbar. Assists went to Soares and Whelan. Just previous to that goal; Richards set up Soares all alone but the dangerous freshman fired the puck past the empty Redmen goal. Lakehead outshot McGill 9-6 in the second.
Lakehead played well in the first half of the third period and were rewarded when Soares intercepted an errant Mcgill pass in the Redmens zone and Soares broke in and tucked the puck between Poitras pads at 10:07. The Redmen then put on the pressure and Bloom scored at 13:02 on a goal that took some time to be finally awarded by the referee. Action went end-to-end but neither team could capitalize though Lakeheads Dan Rogers rang the post with 37 seconds left.
McGill had the edge in play in the OT; outshooting Lakehead 5-0 and Chris Whitley made a huge point blank save of McGills Guillaume Demers with 49 seconds left to preserve the tie. Shots on goal in the OT were 5-0 McGill.
The Molson's Three Stars, as chosen by Reuben Villagracia, of the Thunder Bay Chronicle Journal, were:
1)Lakehead: Mark Soares
2)Lakehead: Chris Whitley
3)McGill: Mathieu Leclerc
The two teams hit the ice again Saturday night at 7:30 pm EST and the game will be videowebcast live pay per view off www.thunderwolveshockey.com with ordering info available by clicking on the broadcast info section at the bottom of the sites main page.