The St. Thomas Tommies women’s hockey team walked away from their regular season home opening weekend with a win and a loss.
The women played St. Francis Xavier University on Friday night. It was a rough game with multiple penalties for both teams. St.FX was able to score quickly when a goal slipped past Tommies goaltender Taylor Cook just two minutes in. They were then able to score again two minutes later. The first period ended with a score of 2-0.
The Tommies came back with fire in the second period. They played hard and had some good shots on the St.FX goal but couldn’t manage to slip one in. The game continued to get rough as Tommies’ Kristina Kocsis got injured towards the end of the second.
They continued to play hard in the third but St.FX was able to slip two more goals past the Tommies making the final score 4-0.
The Tommies came on strong on Saturday night looking to come back against Dalhousie University.
The game was just as rough as the night before with just as many penalties for both sides. The women took some good shots and Tommies’ Becky Conner was able to slip one in three minutes into the first period. However, Dal answered with a goal just seconds later.
STU fought back in the second period and Lauren Legault was able to score again five minutes in. Dal came back and scored three minutes later, but Tommies’ Alisha Gilbert put another one in just a few minutes later.
The game then began to get even rougher as punches started to get thrown. Goaltender Abby Clarke was able to keep up with the good saves for the Tommies as Dal’s defence played well and hard.
Gilbert was able to score again with two minutes remaining just seconds after she was released from the penalty box. Rita Dorofeeva was also able to score again with just seconds left in the second period, leaving the score 5-2 at the end of the second.
Dal fought hard in the third period and was able to sneak two goals past Clarke just five and 10 minutes in. However, after a fight the Tommies were able to respond as Conner scored again with just five minutes left in the game.
Dal pulled its goalie to try and come back, but Tommies captain Emily Oleksuk was able to score again with less than two minutes in the game. The final score was 7-4.
Head coach Peter Murphy said the women’s chemistry as a team is one of their biggest strengths.
“Emily Oleksuk is our new captain and we have no doubt she will be leading this team, but we have a strong group of veterans that she can rely on for support,” Murphy said. “The new recruits will certainly help the team and have been improving in both confidence and skill every time they play.”
Murphy says he expects the team will continue to build and improve with every game they play.
“We look to have a better result from playoffs last year we are most certainly using last year’s team’s success as the measuring stick for this year.”
The women’s next two home games will be on Oct. 28 and 29.
