The Brock Badgers men's hockey team opened its playoff series in style.
Canada Games Park was buzzing with excitement as the Badgers, the No. 6 seed in the West division, took an 8-5 win in Game 1 of an Ontario University Athletics (OUA) Round 1 best-of-three playoff series against the No. 3 seed Lakehead Thunderwolves on Wednesday, Feb. 18.
"We've been building our style of hockey all season," said head coach TJ Manastersky. "Down the stretch here in January and February, we've figured out what that looks like. We want to see that appear right away and we were able to do that today; now the challenge is to do that again."
Tai York led the way by tallying a hat trick, while Zack Stringer scored two goals. Additionally, Nathan Fox, Ryan Johnstone and Rylan Thiessen all found the back of the net themselves.
"It's awesome for York. He's been really coming on in the second half of the year, and he's an awesome kid that works really hard," said Manastersky. "Stringer is one of the best players in the league. We missed him for six weeks, and it feels awfully good to have him back."
The Badgers got to work 21 seconds into the contest when Ryan Stepien stripped the puck from the Thunderwolves on the forecheck and fed York, who scored on a second-chance opportunity.
Although the Thunderwolves quickly evened the score, the Badgers were up to the challenge as a power play set up Stringer, who scored his first of the night, while York took advantage of a Thunderwolves' turnover to close the first frame up 3-1.
"I thought we had a great start," Manastersky said. "We played the game that we wanted to play in the first. That was a key for us."
The second period followed a similar trend to the first as Brock scored within the first minute of the frame from a power-play goal off a tip from Stringer.
Despite the Thunderwolves having a power-play advantage, Fox hunted a punk in Lakehead's zone for a shorthanded goal to help Brock extend their advantage to four after two periods of play.
The Thunderwolves began the third period with Nathan DeGrazia scoring a hat trick, all from shorthand goals to cut the Badgers' lead to 5-4.
However, after Lakehead committed a five-minute major penalty, York and Johnstone each scored to extend the lead to 7-4.
The two teams exchanged goals to end it as the Thunderwolves scored on the power play, while Thiessen put the game out of reach by scoring in the empty net.
The Badgers earned an impressive four power-play goals, while the Thunderwolves only found one. Brock also remained more disciplined, committing 14 minutes of penalties to the 35 minutes committed by Lakehead.
Looking to advance to the OUA quarterfinals, the Badgers travel to Fort William Gardens in Thunder Bay, Ont., to take on the Thunderwolves for Game 2 of this Round 1 best-of-three series on Friday, Feb. 20 at 7 p.m.
"It's going to be wild. Up there is nuts; they'll have 3,000-plus fans in the building," Manastersky said. "It's a difficult place to go, so to head up there with one win is big. Mentally, you're saying we just have to go up there and get one."
