By Connor Bullock

TBAW contributor Connor Bullock will be providing updates of UCC’s hockey prowess for the rest of the season, stay tuned.

This past weekend the Blues Varsity hockey team travelled to Appleby for their pre-season tournament, inviting Malvern collegiate and Blythe Academy for a four team mini tournament. The teams, though random, were all talented and led to a competitive weekend. We missed school on Friday and bussed to Oakville to play against Blythe Academy for our first of two games on the day. We ended up with a 4-4 tie with both teams not playing close to their full potential. At that point the Blues had yet to win a game all season, going into the tournament 0-3-2. After a nice team meal at Boston Pizza, the squad headed back to the rink for a 7 30 night game against the host team, Appleby College.

As you probably know Appleby is a co-ed boarding school, so there were plenty of fans cheering against us for this big game against league rivals. The game was back and forth the whole time with both teams exchanging plenty of scoring chances; however, the Blues scored two quick goals within 30 seconds of each other to take a 2-0 lead going into the third and final period. We played strong defensively, backboned by rookie goaltender Nick Royer and closed the game out with a 2-0 victory and our first win of the season. Though a minor celebration was thought to be in order, the Blues captains PJ Conlon, Jack Hidi, and Ben MacNicol reminded us that we haven’t done anything special yet.

On Saturday we played one game against Malvern Collegiate, winning 4-2 in what had to have been one of the most boring games to watch in the history of the sport. We went into the finals on Sunday to face off against Blythe Academy again due to the small-sized tournament. The Blues went into the second half of the 3rd period down 3-0, with brutal reffing and a hot goalie playing against us. We ended up losing the game 3-2 with two late goals scored by seniors Alex Joannise and Matt Eden. The tournament was a success though, as we all learnt a lot about each other and are preparing for our 6 regular season games before the December break. The Blues are currently preparing for their game Wednesday November 21st against Appleby once again at their rink, as we look to pick up the first two points of the year.