On a rainy Wednesday evening, the Battle of Waterloo was just heating up as both the Laurier Golden Hawks and the Waterloo Warriors men’s hockey teams travelled down the road to play in the Battle of Waterloo, hosted at the Kitchener Memorial Auditorium, home of the OHL’s Kitchener Rangers.
Early on, the teams exchanged chances back and forth for the first ten minutes in the opening frame with neither team establishing a proper setup in their offensive zone.
12 minutes into the period, the Warriors seemed to find a bit of a rhythm keeping the puck in the Laurier zone and generating some shots on net and pressure towards the goal.
Laurier goaltender, Colin Furlong, stood tall to keep it scoreless.
With just under five minutes to play in the first period, the Golden Hawks were on the power play as a two minute tripping penalty was given to Waterloo’s Daniel Perigo.
Laurier had a flurry of quality chances on the power play, but Warriors goaltender, Mike Morrison, was able to sniff them out and the Warriors killed the penalty.
After a fast paced and energetic 20 minutes of play, the game was scoreless headinginto the first intermission with the shots tied at nine a piece.
Only a minute into the second frame, Waterloo’s Tommy Tsicos was given two minutes for a cross check and the Golden Hawks were headed back to the power play.
Shortly after the power play expired, the Golden Hawks got a 3 on 2 towards the Waterloo goal and Jimmy Soper found the back of the net for his first CIS goal.
Shortly after, Murphy was finally able to beat Furlong, but not the goal post as rang a hard shot off the cross bar.
Waterloo continued their push and earned their first power play of the game when Laurier’s Brandon Robinson was given two minutes for interference.
With 6:52 left in the second frame, the Golden Hawks found the net again as Andrew Fritsch scored in close and gave the Golden Hawks a more comfortable 2-0 lead.
Less than 30 seconds later, the Golden Hawks found the back of the net again, as former Kitchener Ranger Brandon Robinson was able to tip one home and find the back of the net to extend the Golden Hawks lead to 3-0 heading to the second intermission.
As the third period got underway, the Warriors came out strong and were looking to capitalize at least once on their extended power play.
Waterloo’s Nick Halagian had a great chance in front of the goal, but Furlong was able to make the stop and reverse the play towards the Waterloo zone.
With just under ten to play in the period, Waterloo’s Cole Murphy found the goal on a controversial play as the puck just barely squeaked across the line.
That was the closest the Warriors would come, as the Golden Hawks were able to add a few empty netters and take this one 5-1, sweeping this season’s Waterloo series.
Head coach, Greg Puhalski, was quite pleased by his team’s effort
“This was probably our most complete game as far as playing good for 60 minutes,” he said.
“For us, it was a good 60 minutes of hockey and a good team effort. All I can say is that if there were 20 pieces of pie, each one of our 20 guys had a piece of the victory tonight.”
Former Kitchener Rangers, Brandon Robinson and Jimmy Soper, were also excited to come back to the Kitchener Aud, an arena they both played many games at as a Ranger.
“I spent two and a half years here. I loved my time here and it was great to have one more game here or hopefully three more over the course of my career here,” Robinson said.
“It’s always a good feeling being back at the Aud,” Soper added.
The Golden Hawks will host the McGill Redmen and the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees this weekend at Sunlife Financial arena.