The York University Lions men's hockey team dominated the Royal Military College (RMC) Paladins 7-4 on Friday night (Nov. 14) at Canlan Ice Sports.
 
Although the Lions scored a season-high seven goals, the Paladins threatened their lead in the third period with a trio of unanswered tallies to cut a 6-1 York advantage to 6-4. However, that was as close as they would get as the Lions held on for the win.
 
There were a total of five exciting goals in the third, three of them from the Paladins. The Lions opened up the scoring in the final frame with a goal at 9:02 from Reid Jackman (Etobicoke, Ont.) that made the score 6-1, but at 10:08, on the power play, Christopher Smerek got a hold of the puck and tipped it to the net, which lightly hit off Brett Pinder's stick and slowly slid past Chris Perugini (King City, Ont.).
 
The Paladins Bruce Hornbrook smacked another goal into the net at 10:38, making the score 6-3.
With only eight minutes left and the Paladins closing the gap to three goals, Eric Louis-Seize sent a smoking puck flaming into the net at 12:55.
 
However, in the final dying minutes of the game, Mark Cross (Strasbourg, Sask.) picked up the puck and sent it to Michael Santini (Woodbridge, Ont.) who blasted the puck into the net at 19:44 and calmed the worries of the Lions fans with the empty-netter.
 
Despite the intense finish, the game began slowly and only started to pick up at 7:45 when Adam Logozzo (Woodbridge, Ont.) swept the puck into the net, giving the Lions the lead.
 
The puck remained in the Paladins half for the reminder of the first period, giving the Lions confidence they could burry another goal.
 
Not long after, one-touch passes from Mitch VanTeeling (Brandon, Man.) and Corey Scott (Calgary) set Greg Milner (Watford, Ont.) up to sneak the puck past goalie Paul Mazzolin at 10:08 to make the score 2-0.
 
Before the end of the period, Hornbrook picked up the puck and slipped it to Marcus Quinlin, who sent it to Kyle Phillips who hammered a one-touch slap shot soaring behind Perugini at 14:37 to get the Paladins on the board.
 
However, just before the end of the period VanTeeling scooped the puck at 19:45 and sent it past Mazzolin to alter the score to 3-1 at the end of the first.
 
The Lions' goal-scoring continued into the second, when Cross deked Mazzolin, skated around the back of the net and tucked the puck into the bottom right corner for a goal at 1:45 to make the score 4-1.
 
At 14:34 VanTeeling took a powerful long distance shot that ricocheted off of Campbell's stick, giving the "man with a moustache" the fifth goal.
Although the Lions scored many goals, Mazzolin did a great job defending the net, saving a total of 26 of York's 33 shots. Perugini saved 21 out of 25 shots from the Paladins.
 
The Lions rise from seventh place to fourth in the OUA West standings after this great victory, with a total record of 5-7-0. Unfortunately, the Paladins remain at the bottom of the OUA East standings with a total of 11 loses.
 
The next game for the Lions is on Saturday (Nov. 15) at 7pm against the No. 8 nationally-ranked Carleton Ravens at Canlan Ice Sports.

The men's hockey team put up seven goals tonight at Canlan vs. RMC! ?? yorku lionpride yorklions hockeynight lionsnation golionsgo

A photo posted by York Lions (@yorkulions) on Nov 11, 2014 at 7:38pm PST