Icemen overcome slow start to top OA

After playing seven of its last eight games in the friendly confines of Metropolis Rink, the CHS boys’ ice hockey team traveled to Brockton on Saturday to take on Davenport foe Oliver Ames and somehow — despite playing sub-par hockey for two thirds of the game — managed to skate away with a 4-2 victory.

The game was just the Bulldogs’ third on the road this season, although two other away dates — including last Wednesday’s game against Attleboro — had to be postponed due to inclement weather.

Nevertheless, head coach Brian Shuman said he had recently stressed to his team the importance of getting off to a good start on the road, which made Saturday’s poor showing in the first two periods all the more surprising to the fourth-year coach.

“We played horribly early on,” Shuman said. “The first two periods were probably the worst two periods of hockey we have played all season.”

Shuman said his team was “very fortunate” to get out of the first period with the game still scoreless; however, their luck ran out in the second as OA built a 2-1 lead despite playing shorthanded for more than half of the frame.

The lone bright spot in the period for Canton was a game-tying power play goal by JC Marcone, with an assist going to senior captain Mike Oldenburg. But any momentum gained from that goal was lost with only five seconds remaining, when OA scored on a two-on-one to regain the lead heading into the final period.

“That just sort of summed up how poorly we played,” said Shuman. “That one play was indicative of the entire second period.”

Fortunately for the Bulldogs, there was still another period of hockey to be played. And the defending champs sure made it count as they roared back to life with three unanswered goals, starting with a one timer by Nick O’Connor about 90 seconds in on a nice pass from Mike Denehy.

About two minutes later, junior forward Justin Saccone put home a Kurt Leavitt rebound for his first varsity goal to give Canton its first lead of the game. The visitors then hung on from there, with Matt Malloy adding a late empty netter to seal the 4-2 win.

After the game, Shuman said he was happy to see his team gut out a victory, although he said it easily could have gone the other way.

“We literally showed up for 15 minutes out of a 45-minute game,” he said, “and we were very lucky to pull this one out.”

The Bulldogs (8-1-1) were scheduled to play two more games this week — at Stoughton last night and home versus Foxboro on Saturday. The dates and times of the team’s two makeup games have yet to be determined.

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Posted by Jay Turner on Feb 3 2011. Filed under High School, Sports. Both comments and pings are currently closed.