McGill University Athletics

1997 McGill Redmen Soccer Championship Team Photo:

FRONT ROW (left to right): Kevin McConnell, Marc Mounicot (co-captain), Graham Butcher (asst. coach), Salim Brahimi (asst. coach), Pat Raimondo (head coach), Adam Mar (asst. coach), Sean Shepherd (co-captain), Peter Bryant (alternate captain). MIDDLE ROW: Marc Labrom, Rehan Ali, Gino Lalli, ShawndelleHanna (student therapist), Jennifer Williams (student therapist), Caroline Lavoie (physiotherapist), Sabrina Polletta (student therapist), Robert Baird, Keith Dennis, Jason Frenette. BACK ROW: GaetanoZullo, Dan Bernad, Simon Abadie, Jason Forsyth (goalkeeper), Simon Raby, Eddy Zuppel (goalkeeper), Justin Student, Andrew Eisenstark and Ehab Rashid.

The Redmen overcame all odds to capture an unexpected national championship in what was thought to be a rebuilding season, marking the school's first CIAU title in any sport over the previous decade.

The Redmen finished first in the Quebec conference with a 6-2-2 regular season record and posted a 10-6-6 record overall, en route to capturing the QSSF title and the CIAU's Sam Davidson trophy.

In the CIAU gold medal match at Halifax, McGill overcame the loss of Marc Labrom, an all-Canadian defender, to a red card only four  minutes after the opening whistle. They played air-tight defence against heavily-favoured UBC and came away with a 1-0 victory, after a 5-4 decision on penalty kicks. Co-captain and all-Canadian Marc Mounicot tied the shootout round at 4-4 and Peter Bryant netted the decisive marker with his only goal of the season.

Mounicot, who shared the conference scoring lead, was voted as the league's player of the year and won the Forbes trophy as McGill's male athlete of the year.

Pat Raimondo earned conference coach-of-the-year honours and the team featured five conference all-stars, including Labrom, Mounicot, Kevin McConnell and goalkeeper Jason Forsyth, who was named CIS tourney MVP and later won the Uldis Auders trophy winner as McGill's top sophomore student-athlete.