While most of Ryerson was on reading break, the men’s hockey team was certainly not. They took on the York Lions and the Guelph Gryphons, coming out with a .500 record. It was Saturday night’s game which was circled in red on the calendar, the Hogtown hoedown against the University of Toronto Varsity Blues.
Coming into the hockey night matchup, both sides sat on four points through four games, but at the end of the exhilarating 6-5 game, Toronto would get the upper hand.
Enough of this, lets get into today’s edition of The Ramsies!
First Period:
Slushy Ice:
The ice at Varsity Arena has become notorious for being soft and sometimes even slushy. The 96-year-old arena is good in the winter when it is cold outside, but with being used so often and the temperatures still above freezing, there could be cause for concern about the ice surface.
Not for Ryerson Rams head coach Johnny Duco though, who dismissed any thoughts of ice surface harming their game, saying “ Our ice at the MAC (Mattamy Athletic Centre) is very soft, so either way it doesn’t affect us.” in speaking to 49.
Well that wasn’t in the plan:
Think of a perfect hockey game. I’m sure your plan does not include conceding an early goal away from home. That’s exactly what the Ryerson Rams did on Saturday night when their whole team was slow to launch out of the gate.
The Varsity Blues, on the other hand, did launch of the gate and e opened the scoring a mere four minutes into the first period thanks to Dave Thompson’s second goal of the season. The puck sneakily snuck by Troy Timpano who was too late to slide across his net to make the save.
Rough and Tough from the start :
As can be expected in any affair between these two teams, there was some early roughness which took place in the game. After allowing the opening goal, Ryerson stepped up their game, and their physicality came along with it.
Their pushiness and ricocheted shots of the Toronto netminder’s head led to some early altercation between the two sides and a few early penalties.
This continued right until the final whistle, where Toronto celebrated victory
Second period:
Pop’n bottles:
The second goal by the Varsity Blues was a thing of beauty. It was something that only happens when you’re on rookie level on EA Sports NHL 20. Very rarely do you see a slapshot fly into the net so smoothly that it whips the netting and flings the bottle from its perch, but thats exactly what Evan MacEarchen did to the Rams to give the blues a 2-1 lead
Quality and quantity:
Less than halfway through the second period, five goals had already been scored. While five goals can sometimes mean a walk in the park for one team, that was nowhere near the case in this matchup.
Watching this game was like watching a see-saw go up and down, or a tennis rally. (Which is an acceptable simile as Bianca Andreescu dropped the ceremonial faceoff at the Toronto Maple Leafs game.) not only were there goals, but each of them was of elite-quality. ‘
The eliteness was evident until 7:33 left in the third period when Ryerson tied the game up at three with a goal that looked like it was kicked in.
Third Period:
Toronto breaka… nope
The Varsity Blues had countless breakaways throughout the game but were unable to cash in on any of them. Although all of their goals were very good looking, they were unable to score on any of their breakaways. Fortunately for them, they were not short of other scoring pathways.
Not going away, Like a mosquito:
The Ryerson Rams were like that little mosquito that is buzzing around your ear when you are trying to sleep. That is of course if “you” were the Varsity Blues. Every time that the blues had swatted away said mosquito, the buzzing would just start again.
Every time that the Blues would score, Ryerson responded within minutes. That happened all throughout the game, as neither team was able to get a two-goal lead at any point. Although the edge was in favour of the Varsity Blues, who would always force the Rams to come back.
The overtime thing:
Neither one of these teams would back down, and neither one of them had experienced the thrills of 3 on 3 OUA overtime yet this season. All of that changed on Saturday night when the Hogtown hoedown sent itself to overtime. As we’ve mentioned before, there were a lot of goals and they were very pretty- that was the same case with the overtime winner.
The extra frame was extremely back and forth, although it finally fell in the home team’s favour, giving them the win over their downtown rivals.
Player of the game: Nathan Hudgin
In most post-games, the OT winning goalscorer is commonly awarded the player of the game. However, in this one, the award is well earned, as Nathan Hudgin scored a pair of goals and added an assist on top of that.
Hudgin spoke to 49 after the game, saying “of course I credit my teammates on those passes, and finishing their chances too, I wouldn’t be able to control the game on my own, but thanks to their good play I was able to put up the numbers tonight.”
It wasn’t just his teammate’s passes which created his success, but it was also the effort he put int throughout the whole game. There were countless times when he would battle an opposing player off the puck, or have that one extra stride that got him there on time.
As we can see on the winning goal, he also had some slick moves to flick it over the glove side of Troy Timpano.
UP NEXT:
Ryerson at Western Mustangs: October 25th
University of Toronto at Lakehead University: October 25th
Both games can be streamed for free on OUA TV.