The Lakehead Thunderwolves mens hockey will be hosting a huge home series this Friday and Saturday night as they welcome the powerful No. 5 McGill Redmen to the Fort William Gardens. This series will mark the first time the two teams have met since last years Lakehead OUA Queens Cup win over McGill and also will mark the first time the two teams have met in OUA regular season action.
Lakehead enters the weekend with a 9-4-1 OUA record (11-7-1 overall) and have 19 points; good for second place in the OUA Far West Division; four points behind Waterloo and thee points ahead of third place Western. Lakehead is coming off two road losses to UQTR last weekend.
McGill is 8-2-2-1 in OUA play (13-5-2-1 overall) and have 19 points; good for second behind UQTR in the OUA Far East. The Redmen are coming off a tie with Western and a close loss to Waterloo.
Lakehead Head Coach Pete Belliveau said McGill will be a formidable opponent. McGill will be our biggest home series of the first half of the regular season schedule. They have a very balanced attack and are very strong defensively. Coach Raymond has them playing a very solid game. In order to have success, we must play better five-on-five hockey. We are hoping to sell out the Fort William Gardens for both games so we can we feed off our seventh player; our incredible fans!
Game time both nights is 7:30 pm EST and both games 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. Broadcasts begin at approx. 7:25 pm both nights with Alan Wickware calling the play by play and Mike Aylward doing the colour and pre-game.
Head To Head:
This will be the fifth and six meetings between the two teams and Lakehead is 4-0 in those games. Three were non-conference matches and the other was last years Queens Cup Championship game. Lakehead has outscored McGill 20-6 in those games.
Lakehead is tied for first in CIS goals for at 4.9 per game while McGill is 7th at 4 goals per game. The stingy Redmen again lead the CIS in goals allowed at 2.1 per game while Lakehead is 10th at 3.2 per game.
Lakehead Thunderwolves:
Lakehead played a tough team in UQTR last weekend but the Wolves were undermanned and played pretty good hockey and were in both games until the end. The Wolves will have to play strong offensive hockey to break through the tough Redmen defense but Lakehead will also have to improve its team defense from last weeks performance as McGill has a balanced offensive squad with good counterstrike capability. The Wolves will have to stay out of the penalty box as well and hope that their powerplay unit will re-ignite this weekend.
Captain Jeff Richards (6 goals, 5 assists in 7 games) returns from suspension and his skill, leadership, and offense will be sorely needed against the powerful Redmen.
Junior Tobias Whelan continues to score and his 27 points (10 goals, 17 assists) is second in the OUA and third in the CIS. His 17 assists lead both the CIS and OUA.
Freshman Mark Soares has been on fire and seems to have made the adjustment to CIS hockey and is now second in Lakehead scoring with 10 goals and 10 assists. He is 7th in OUA scoring and tied for ninth in CIS scoring. He potted four goals and an assist last week against UQTR.
Senior Mike Wehrstedt (7 goals, 6 assists) continues his steady play but the Wolves are hoping for more goals from this strong two-way player against McGill. Senior Mark Robinson (4 goals, 6 assists) will also need to be aggressive on the forecheck against the tough McGill defense. Robinson however may be facing a suspension due to a fighting major incurred against UQTR and not be able to play this weekend.
Junior forwards Matt Maissoneuve (3 goals, 3 a