Tigers on the board   

- November 05 2009

Pete Belliveau's Dalhousie Tigers men's hockey team got their first conference win this past Friday night at the Dalhousie Memorial Arena. The Tigers withstood a late rally from the Moncton Blue Eagles to win 6-4.

The Tigers have 11 fresh faces on this year's rebuilding squad, but it was a familiar face that led the way in this contest.

Captain and 4th year senior Jeff Larsh scored a hat trick to pace the Tigers, his third marker coming at the midway point of the second period.

Larsh's first goal came 30 seconds into the game and was followed a minute later by a highlight goal from Kenzie Sheppard. A streaking Sheppard took a long pass from Ben Van Lare and scored on the breakaway with a nifty backhanded move.

Trevor Mackenzie also scored for the Tigers and Ronald Kelly added an empty netter to put the game away late in the third period.

Dean Ouellet scored a goal and added an assist to garner player of the game honours for Moncton. Bobby Nadeau stopped 33 shots for the Tigers to get his first victory of his university career, after playing 5 years in the QMJHL.

The next afternoon at the arena, the Tigers played the St. Thomas Tommies to a standstill after 70 minutes of regulation and overtime, but lost in the shootout.

Dartmouth's Cory Banfield returned to the HRM as a Tommie and scored the game winning shootout goal. Banfield also scored in the first period on route to being named player of the game.

Patrick Sweeney led the Tigers with 2 assists. Ronald Kelly added a goal and registered a stellar two way performance to spark a Tigers comeback late in the third. Trailing 3-1, the Tigers scored 2 goals to force overtime and ensure themselves of at least a point in the standings.

The Tigers are now 1-3-2 and are tied for last place with Moncton. The Tigers have shown strength at the Memorial Arena, now 1-0-2 after 3 home games.

Dalhousie plays Acadia Wednesday night in Wolfville, and then come home for a pair of weekend games, vs. PEI on Friday night, and the UNB Varsity Reds on Saturday night. Both games start at 7:00 and can be seen live on ssncanada.ca.

AUS soccer championships at Dalhousie

The reigning AUS Champion Dalhousie Tigers men's soccer team will play host for the 2009 championships. The Tigers will be the number 2 seed and play their first game on Saturday at 3 pm vs. the highest remaining seed from Friday's quarterfinals. The Cape Breton Capers are the tournament's top seed and will play the lowest remaining seed on Saturday at noon.

Weather is expected to be a major factor for Friday's games. The forecast is calling for heavy rains and cool temperatures. Saturday's games should see crisp but clear weather, while Sunday's final is expected to be a beautiful day.

Tigers Head Coach Pat Nearing was a guest on CKDU Sports this past Tuesday. Nearing said that the flu epidemic will probably be a bigger storyline than the weather. The Tigers have had players miss time the last couple of weeks due to illness, and he thinks the other teams are in the same boat.

If the Tigers make it to the final vs. Cape Breton, coach Nearing hopes to take advantage of the Capers attacking style. "(The Capers) are quick. Their whole team has an attacking mentality," said Nearing. "They come at you in waves and it could create some opportunities for counter attack, a chance for one on one with our strikers. If that happens, I fancy our chances."

Nearing also added that when the Tigers lost to Cape Breton in Sydney, they were without the services of starting strikers Hamzeh Afani and Michel Daoust-Wheatley.

Finally, Nearing warned fans not to book Cape Breton and Dalhousie as automatic participants in Sunday's final. "The AUS is so tight and soccer is the cruelest of sports," said Nearing. "It's a game of upsets, affected by weather, surface....you could dominate a game from start to finish and lose 1-0."

The entire tournament will be shown on ssncanada.ca. Join me and Matt Fegan at 12:00 on Friday for the first game of the 2009 championships.

Notes and Observations

AUS basketball starts this weekend; The Tigers play UNB on Friday night while the Huskies have a tough two game set in Cape Breton. The women's games will be very interesting with the defending champion Capers hosting the new and improved Huskies with their highly touted recruiting class ... the Acadia Axemen walking into Antigonish this weekend and beating the X-Men in the AUS Football semifinal would be akin to the Miracle on Ice in 1980, when a gutsy bunch of Americans led by Ken Morrow beat the Soviet Union. Even if Acadia manages to hang tough with the X-Men, the Gary Waterman "love in" on campus could come to a crashing halt. But it's not going to happen. X wins by 21 points at least ... The Dalhousie Tigers women's basketball team could be in for a rough November. After looking very unimpressive in pre-season, the Tigers have a tough first term conference schedule featuring games against MUN, CBU, and X. The Tigers are desperate for Alex Legge to return, but she won't be back until January. Until then the team's youthful backcourt will have its hands full with some very physical and experienced opponents.

3 Comments

---

Ken MacLean Nov 08 1:16 p.m.

bohokooy Jan 26 12:27 p.m.

boiokyoy Feb 05 9:36 p.m.

Name

Email address

URL

Comment

If you enter anything in this field your comment will be treated as spam