By CLAUDE SCILLEY
They matched one of the top intercollegiate hockey teams in the land stride for stride; they persevered in the third period though they lost three players to injury earlier in the game; they got a 38-save performance from their goaltender—and the Queen’s Golden Gaels still lost.
Again.
Their 2-1 defeat at the hands of the Carleton Ravens Tuesday night at the Memorial Centre was the Gaels’ third loss in a row. It dropped them below .500 for the first time since October, and in burning their game in hand on seventh-place Ontario Tech, the Gaels remain just two points ahead of the Ridgebacks in the quest for sixth place in the East division of Ontario University Athletics.
Gaels coach Brett Gibson has been known to say he really likes his team, though he hates its 8-9 record.
“We have all the tools to be a winning hockey team but we don’t know how to win yet,” Gibson said after watching his team suffer its sixth one-goal loss of the season.
Actually, all of the team’s nine defeats have been by a solitary goal, if you include the three that were embellished by an opponent’s empty-net clincher.
The Gaels have just one fifth-year man on the roster and just two fourth-year players. It’s a team uncommonly short of experience but Gibson is clearly no longer consoling himself with thoughts of close being sufficient for a young hockey team.
“You can say all you want,” he said. “Carleton’s a very good hockey team and our team came to play, but we still lost.
“It just comes with time. Winning is hard. It’s really hard. This was by far our best effort in a long, long time. We competed. (Carleton is) a big, strong hockey team. We were down three forwards in the third period. I went with nine guys who gave me everything. They’re exhausted—and they should be.”
If there’s a sign that his team might be paying the requisite dues to get to where he would like it to ber, Gibson suggested perhaps that’s it.
“We have a lot of very good hockey players who came from, let’s call a spade a spade, .500 teams,” he said. “They never learned to win. There’s not a lot of teams with the skill that we have. They just have to find a way to learn how to win and you know what? In games like today, you’ll learn how to win, because that’s the way you should feel. You should be exhausted; you should be sore.
“We haven’t been that way that much this year.”
The Gaels fell behind 2-0 in the first period when Joe Pleckaitis and Damian Cross scored goals less than three minutes apart. It was Pleckaitis’s 13th goal of the season, tying him for the league lead.
Despite being outshot 13-4 in the second, Queen’s scored the only goal when Kelly Jackson completed an odd-man rush to score for the third time in the last four games.
After pulling goaltender Kevin Bailie for a sixth skater in the final minute, the Gaels created a couple of scoring opportunities but they weren’t able to finish them.
It meant that though the Gaels allowed the fourth highest-scoring team in the nation just three goals in two games this year, they emerged without a point to show for it.
“There’s a lot of positives,” Gibson conceded. “If we’ve got to play Carleton, McGill or Three Rivers (in the playoffs), there it is,” he continued, nodding toward the ice surface. “That’s a 2-1 hockey game … that’s the playoffs, and you know what? If that’s the best team in our conference, bring it on. I’ll play them any day.”
The Gaels resume play Friday night in Toronto against the York Lions.
In a ceremony before Tuesday’s game, Bailie was presented with the Murray Douglas Scholarship, established in the name of a former Gael to recognize the academic and athletic excellence of a varsity hockey player at Queen's. Last season Bailie, from Belleville, was a first-team conference all-star and the national rookie of the year.
