University rivalry heats up

Tim Switzer, The Leader-Post

Published: Friday, February 17, 2006

The rivalry between the University of Regina and University of Saskatchewan men's hockey teams hasn't lost any of its fire.

Ninety penalty minutes -- including 11 roughing calls and five 10-minute misconducts-- were registered in the contest Thursday at the Sherwood Ice Sports Centre, a 4-2 win for the Huskies.

U of R Cougars head coach Blaine Sautner shrugged off the rough stuff, but when the playoffs start next week, he hopes to see it disappear.

"That's going to happen when you have a rivalry like that -- it's going to get heated up," he said. "When it comes to playoff time you've got to stay disciplined. I don't think we can get too much involved in that stuff. It would have been nice to see a couple more penalties called in our favour when some of that stuff takes place but it didn't and you have to deal with it."

The Cougars open the playoffs in Winnipeg next week against the Manitoba Bisons.

Thursday, the Cougars (9-16-2) opened the scoring just 3:55 into the game when second-year forward James Ardelan snapped one past Huskies keeper Jeff Harvey from a sharp angle.

The U of R killed penalties for much of the first period but with Cougars defenceman Jason Seerey serving two minutes for high-sticking, Huskies captain Brent Twordik tied the game at one.

The Huskies (17-6-4) took a one-goal lead in the second period with the Cougars' defence pinching. Breaking in on a two-on-one, Huskies forward Jeff Schmidt slid the puck perfectly to Keegan McAvoy who made a pretty move to tuck it behind Cougars goaltender Nathan Fischl.

Forty-one seconds later, the Huskies increased their lead to 3-1, as centre Shawn Langen banged home a rebound in front of the Cougar net.

"We just had two shifts we pinched in places we shouldn't be pinching," said Sautner. "But they took it upon themselves to try to make a play that probably wasn't going to be there and it ends up in our net two shifts in a row."

The Cougars cut the lead on the powerplay late in the second on a goal by forward Chad Anderson, playing in his final home game as a Cougar.

The Huskies added an empty-netter with less than a second left in the game to take a 3-2 advantage in the season series.

Anderson called it a tough loss to take, particularly with the costly mistakes.

"I guess it happens to everybody," Anderson said. "It seems like you fall asleep for two minutes and bang-bang we're down 3-1. I don't know what you can say about it. We made some mistakes and they made us pay for it."

The game having no bearing on the final season standings, didn't ease the pain.

"We're going to Winnipeg and we know that but you always want to get that win and finish off strong here," Anderson said.

The Cougars and Huskies clash again Saturday in Saskatoon to close out the regular season. Sautner expects another battle but says his players are prepared.

"It's always tough to win in their rink but I think we held our own here (Thursday)," he said. "It's basically a one-goal hockey game."