Queens claw out win
Queens 3 Cougars 2
A garbage can paid the price for the RDC Queens’ terrible first two periods Thursday night, then the Mount Royal Cougars paid the price on the ice in the final period as the Queens rallied to beat the last place team in the Alberta Colleges Women’s Hockey League 3-2 at the Arena.
“What turned it around? Well my foot is still throbbing from the garbage can I kicked,“ said Queens coach Rob Weddell. “We hadn’t really come into an (intermission) yet and expressed disappointment and anger, and I don’t like doing that, but there were just too many girls — normally there is one or two, but the whole team was just sitting back. We worked way to hard this season to have girls sit back and let another team beat us.”
The Cougars held a 1-0 lead going into the third period — on a Sharina Filion first period marker — but the Queens finally got on the board early in the third period as Chantal Froehler put one past goalie Leanne Pfliger at 2:03. She was followed shortly by Karla Bourke at 3:55 as the Queens went up 2-1.
The game appeared to be on ice until MRC’s Jesslyn Legasse’s point shot deflected off a Queen’s stick and caught Grace Gaska going the other way in the RDC net at 18:23 to tie the affair. But the Queens didn’t sit back, they found a new gear and Ashley Blaquiere banged home a rebound off a Janel Lirette point shot just 65 seconds later to put RDC up 3-2 for good.
“On the winner I had to tell myself to calm down and not panic,” said Blaquiere. “The puck was flipping a bit, so I knew I had to get it settled down before I could flip it in. But I knew the goalie was down and out though.”
Blaquiere said Weddell’s motivational talk in the second intermission snapped them out of their funk.
“The first and second period we were playing down to their level, and then our coach gave us a good pep talk there in the third and we came out flying,” she said. “In the first and second, for some reason we weren’t communicating. We didn’t come out as hard as we can, and you start thinking they are below you, when really you should be thinking they are going to be coming up to your level.”
Gaska finished with 22 saves on the night while The Queens fired 30 shots at Pfliger in the MRC net.
The win at least temporarily launches the Queens into third place in the ACAC, one point ahead of MacEwan who now has one game in hand. The Queens (9-8-2) catch a big break in the fact MacEwan (8-7-3) is playing the University of Calgary (15-3-0) this weekend and will need to sweep the powerhouse Dinos to maintain their hold on third — that is if the Queens can complete the sweep of MRC today in Calgary at 8:45 p.m.
“(Third place) is important to us, especially when the two teams we are finishing off against (MRC and NAIT next week) we are going to face one of them in the first round,” said Weddell. “You don’t want to give them any hope that they can play against you. You want to send a message and go into the playoffs with motivation.”
Contact Josh Aldrich at jaldrich@reddeeradvocate.com
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