Toronto, ON – The TMU Bold entered Thursday’s game against the Brock Badgers in a mixed spot.
The last time these two teams played on October 29 resulted in a 6-4 Bold victory, and at the time, both teams were ranked. A month later, the Bold ranked ninth, but the Badgers had fallen off the board. It was TMU, though, who entered Thursday on a slide, losing three in a row.
A resounding 6-2 win over the Badgers, though, might be just what the Bold needed to close out the first semester strong.
“Anytime you can get off a three-game losing streak, you feel good about it,” Johnny Duco said. “Brock is a rival team for us. We played with urgency; we had great goaltending, and our D played tough.”
Duco has been stressing all season long, especially in the losses, that the team needs to play with more urgency, and that was the case tonight against the Badgers.
Just under five minutes in, the Badgers got on the board first on the powerplay courtesy of a deflection by Cole Tymkin. The Bold responded a few minutes after the penalty, though, as Connor Bowie brought the Bold even and, thanks to it being Teddy Bear night, saw fans throw teddy bears on the ice.
“It felt good. It’s a pretty awesome feeling. We were down early, so to get that one back. I think it gave us a bit of momentum. Ultimately, it feels good.” Connor Bowie said regarding him scoring the teddy bear toss goal.
The funny thing about the teddy bear toss games is players usually have some money on the line as to who would score. That remained true with Bowie saying, “Definitely. I won’t say how much, but I’m pretty happy.”
Aside from a Bold powerplay, the Badgers controlled much of the play in the first period. This resulted in Cole Tymkin scoring his second goal of the game on a weird deflection which saw Tymkin glove it down very close to the goal line and just get a stick on it.
The Badgers dominated the start of the second period, with most of the time spent in the Bold end. The Bold got a break though five minutes in with Jackson Doherty leading the rush and scored five-hole to tie the game up at 2-2.
Just two minutes later, the Bold made Brock pay on the man advantage. On TMU’s third powerplay of the night, William Portokalis showed off his hand-eye coordination by getting a stick on an Elijah Roberts shot that slipped past Andy Maclean to make it 3-2 for TMU.
Two minutes later, the Bold again made the Badgers pay, scoring their fourth goal on the powerplay as Jesse Barwell buried a pass from Zach Shankar to double the Bold lead, 4-2.
“We made a couple of adjustments like switching [Gursoy] to his forehand and getting [Elijah] back up top. The one unit with Hyman has been pretty good. We don’t have a first or second unit. We have two units who can get the job done.” Duco added about how efficient the powerplay was on Thursday night.
Kyle Bollers entered Thursday’s game on a 4-game goal drought. He was generating chances for the Bold all night long. To start the 3rd period, Any MacLean had to turn aside a Bollers breakaway. It wouldn’t stop there as Bollers earned another breakaway and, this time, roofed it glove side to extend the Bold lead to 5-2.
Elijah Roberts also got in on the action, sliding it five holes to make it 6-2 for the Bold just before the buzzer sounded on a resounding TMU win.
Any coach will tell you you can’t let one game change your mentality. For the TMU Bold, though, after a rough week and a half, a big win over a rival no less, might be just the push they need to close the fall portion of the 2022-2023. season.