Buccaneers give Suroît TGV all it can handle

BY MICHAEL PIASETZKI



With the Lac St. Louis Hockey Association inter-city season into its third month, most observers agree the peewee BB Patriots Division has become a tale of two powerful Suroît teams.

One of those, second-place TGV, hit the road on Sunday afternoon destination Dollard des Ormeaux for a crossover match against Lions Division representative Dollard Buccaneers at the Civic Centre.

In a highly entertaining affair that smacked of playoff atmosphere, the Bucs gave the visitors all they could handle and more only to succumb 4-3.

It was the first loss of the season for head coach Yvan Maldonado’s troops, a plucky and extremely hard-working group that has remained competitive in every game it has participated in so far this season, one that has featured four ties, including a 3-3 dandy against the Turbo on the road on Oct. 29.

“Our kids played great. I am really proud of them,� Maldonado said.

“We won a game on Saturday, but didn’t play half as good as we played in defeat today. But hey, that was a great team we faced. I felt we had a lot of chances, but we kept shooting the puck right at their goalie. Still, the odd break here and there and we could have come away with at least a point,� he added.

Michael Ouellet, a big swift skater with good hands who surely deserves a chance to show his skills at the AA level, scored two goals to pace TGV. His second marker with seven minutes left in the game proved to be the winner, as he stole the puck at the blue-line, swept in alone and beat Bucs goaltender Darren Fishman with a beautiful backhander up high. It gave TGV the insurance marker they needed, because you had to know the Bucs would keep fighting. As they did, narrowing it to 4-3 on an Anthony Pirocacos shot from about 30 feet out that seemed to change direction and fool TGV goaltender Gabriel Germain with a little over two minutes left in the game.

The Bucs then had a wonderful opportunity to tie it up with a little over a minute left in regulation time when Brett Rosenberg raced in alone on Germain, but could not convert.

“I watched that game they played against the Turbo in late October, the 3-3 tie,� said TGV head coach Richard Delisle. “Because of that, I knew we would be in for a battle. A game like this was good for our kids. I wanted them to play in a tight contest, because that’s what the games will be like at the end of the season and during the playoffs.�

Delisle could not have been happy about his team’s slow start, something he admitted, has been dogging them all year. They fell into penalty trouble early, not a good thing against a pretty impressive Bucs power play. As a result, the Bucs jumped out to a quick 2-0 lead on Jarred Rockman and Jordan Faier power-play markers.

However, Ouellet tied it up with his first with a little over a minute left in the period before Philippe Sanche made it

2-2 just as the second frame was about to come to an end. Robert Manfred made it 3-2 TGV with about five minutes gone in the third, knocking in a loose puck past Fishman on a four-on-four situation. Despite coming out with the loss, Fishman handled himself quite admirably, constantly putting himself in a proper position to stop pucks and

managing to keep his fellow Buccaneers in the game.