The York University Lions men's hockey team triumphed over the Queen's Gaels 4-1 on Friday (Jan. 9) in its first game of 2015 at Canlan Ice Sports.
 
Shayne Rover (Newmarket, Ont.) played excellent defence as he dove onto the ground, used his body to block the puck, and even scored his own short-handed goal, what stood as the game winner. Rover assisted with the win by taking the pressure off Chris Perugini (King City, Ont.) and blocking several of the Gaels' efforts.
 
Derek Sheppard (Ajax, Ont.) opened up the scoring at ­­­­4:46 with the help of Tyler McGee (Timmins, Ont.) and Michael Santini (Woodbridge, Ont.), putting the Lions in the lead early.
 
Perugini was caught outside of the net 15 minutes into the game, but the Lions defenders dove and tumbled in front of the net, bouncing the puck out. Unfortunately, the Gaels caught hold of the puck and Andrew Wiebe sent it soaring, tying the game 1-1.
 
The Lions never gave up and kept pushing until the final minutes of play. While killing a penalty, Rover sprinted down the ice alone, scooped the puck around the goalie and into the top left corner, scoring a short-handed goal and putting the Lions back in the lead.
 
The Gaels fought hard in the final minutes of play of the first, striking the York net.  Perugini was able to effortlessly block the attack and the Lions led 2-1 after the first 20 minutes of play.
 
The Lions were hungry for more goals at the start of the second as Mark Cross (Strasbourg, Sask.) delivered the puck to Dylan Smoskowitz (Richmond Hill, Ont.), who aggressively shot the puck to the back of the net just over two minutes into the frame.
 
Not long after, at 10:33, Sheppard scooped the puck up and smacked it towards the goalie, assisting Smoskowitz with a deflection into the center of the net.
 
The game ended with a scoreless third period.
 
Queen's peppered the Lions' goal throughout the game and Perugini was forced to make 51 saves to earn the win. His counterpart, Kevin Bailie, made just 17 saves in the loss.
 
The Lions improved to 7-10-1 are in eighth place in the OUA West standings, while the Gaels are also in eighth in the OUA East standings at 8-9-1.
 
The next game for the Lions is Saturday (Jan. 10) against the UOIT Ridgebacks at Canlan Ice Sports.

Huge win for the Lions tonight with Rover scoring a shorty and Perugini with 51 saves! ???? yorku lionpride yorklions hockey #hockeynight

A photo posted by York Lions (@yorkulions) on Jan 9, 2015 at 7:27pm PST