Requins sink their teeth into Tigers

BY MICHAEL PIASETZKI

Take a look at the wild and wacky world that is the Lac St. Louis Hockey Association peewee BB Lions Division, and one distinct observation becomes very clear.

It’s not only extremely competitive, but appears destined to be a horse race as far as final seeding goes heading into next month’s regional playoff tournament. Heading into this weekend’s action, no less than three teams, including the Lakeshore Tigers, West Island Kings and Dollard des Ormeaux Buccaneers remain tied for first place with 40 points. Meanwhile, the Lakeshore Panthers, West Island Royals and Dollard Pirates are within close striking range with 38, 36 and 34 points respectively.

Lurking warily like hungry sharks though, are the eighth-place Deux Rives Requins, who have only played 16 games heading into this weekend’s action compared to the Tigers, Kings and Bucs, who have all played 21 games. The reason for the Requins’ lack of league action so far has been their decision to participate in several pre-Christmas and post-New Year tournaments.

The Requins gave the frontrunners a warning Sunday afternoon at the Sportplexe 4 Glaces in Pierrefonds by laying a convincing 7-0 beating on the Tigers, a club that despite finding itself in a first-place tie, has been spinning its wheels of late. Jason Marsolais led the Requins with a pair of goals while Corey Eccles, Axel Lengele, Anthony Mansi, Jimmy Thompson and David Ducas added singles. Philippe Villiard, a huge presence between the pipes, played a strong game to pick up shutout.

“We’re ready for 2007,” said Requins assistant coach Sylvain Lagrange. “We’ve been learning so much from playing in all those tournaments. The only problem we had in the first three months of the regular season was picking up our Fair-Play points. We expect to pick them up in the coming weeks, though. Still, our guys have to play as a team in order to win. They did that today.”

The loss left Tigers head coach Tony Amorosa scratching his head in bewilderment. Despite holding on to a share of the top spot, his troops have not been playing well of late. They lost 6-3 to the Kings at home on Saturday. The only answer to turning things around he said, seems to be by starting all over.

“We’re suddenly losing the battles we used to win,” he added. “We’ve actually been on a bit of a skid the past six games, and so, I believe we have to start concentrating on teaching them the little things again, almost like it’s training camp. We seem to have lost our confidence out there Hopefully, we’ll get it back.”

Requins captain Eccles said he expected a tougher challenge from the Tigers, and was surprised at the lopsided score.

“I thought it would be closer,” he said. “The difference today was our goaltending, which was strong, and we passed the puck well.”

Puck note: Tigers forward Jean Leblanc is the younger brother of Louis Leblanc, a high-scoring forward for the Quebec Midget AAA Hockey League Lac St. Louis Lions. The elder Leblanc by the way, will be part of the Quebec team that will be participating in the Canada Winter Games, scheduled for later this month in Whitehorse.