OTTAWA – Centre Charles-Antoine Roy of Gatineau, Que., tallied twice as the No.7 ranked Ottawa Gee-Gees rallied with a pair of late goals to defeat McGill 3-2 in a men's hockey game at the Minto Sports Complex, Sunday.
 
The ending was eerily similar to the 1979 NHL playoff classic when Montreal defeated Boston in overtime after the Bruins had taken a too-many-men penalty with 2:34 remaining. Guy Lafleur scored the tying goal en route to the overtime winner by Yvon Lambert. The play has been immortalized ever since on Hockey Night in Canada.
 
Well this OUA contest wasn't a playoff and didn't end in overtime but the end result felt just as good for the winning team and equally as bad to the losing side.
 
It was the seventh straight loss for McGill, which led 2-1 in the dying moments but was called for a too-many-men infraction with 2:36 remaining. The Gee-Gees pulled their goalie for a 6-on-4 advantage and Roy found the back of the net on the ensuring power-play to knot the score at 2-2. Just 48 seconds later, defenceman Nicolas Mattinen, a native of Ottawa, snuck in from the blue line and struck paydirt with the game-winner at 18:54.
 
It erased a solid road performance for the luck-challenged Redbirds, who never trailed until the final 66 seconds.
 
Jordan-Ty Fournier of Dorval, Que., had opened the scoring only 69 seconds after the initial puck drop. It was the third goal of the season for the hard-nosed, 6-foot-1, 203-pound forward who intercepted a pass inside his own blueline, raced up the ice on a 2-on-1 rush and jammed home his own rebounds for an unassisted goal.
 
Roy evened the count for Ottawa with his first of two at the 18:29 mark. After a scoreless middle period, freshman centre Eric Uba of Kitchener, Ont., connected for his team-leading fourth of the season at 14:15 of the final frame to give McGill a reasonable smidgen of optimism.
 
Then disaster struck.
 
Perhaps an omen of things to come occurred in the pre-game warm-up, when a pane of glass was shattered, which may not have caused seven years of bad luck but result in a 19-minute delay to the start of the game.

The Gee-Gees outshot McGill 35-28 and went 1-for-5 on the power-play, while McGill was 0-for-1 on its only man-advantage situation. 

Ottawa rookie goaltender Tristan Berube made 26 saves for the win, while McGill freshman Alexis Shank kicked aside 32 in a losing cause.

Ottawa, which improved to 5-2-1, regained the lead atop the OUA East. They are just one point ahead of second-place Carleton and nine points ahead of fifth-place McGill (1-7-0). 

The Redbirds, who have yet to score more than three goals in a league game, can make right the ship when meet cross-town rival Concordia (4-1-1) at the Loyola campus on Saturday, Dec. 4, in the annual Corey Cup rivalry game for local college hockey supremacy. The puck drops at 7 p.m.

SCORING SUMMARY

OUA STATS & STANDINGS

SOURCE:
Earl Zukerman
Sports Information Officer
Athletics & Recreation
McGill University
514-398-7012
www.mcgillathletics.ca
earl.zukerman@mcgill.ca