The York University Lions men's hockey team took on the visiting Laurier Golden Hawks in their last home game of 2017 on Friday night and wrapped up the year in style, posting a convincing 4-1 victory at Canlan Ice Sports.
 
The Golden Hawks had surpassed the Lions by one point in the standings and came in to Friday's game sitting in first place in the OUA West. They also handed the Lions their first loss of the season, defeating the Lions 6-2 earlier this year. On Friday, the Lions were able to redeem themselves.
 
Nine minutes into the first period, the Lions scored and gave themselves an early lead. This goal was scored by Trevor Petersen, and assisted by Colton Vannucci and Jack Goranson. After that, neither team scored for the remainder of the period and the Lions led 1-0.
 
In the second period, Nik Coric – assisted by Andrew Doyle – added another goal for the Lions less than four minutes in. Goaltender Alex Fotinos was able to hold off all of the Golden Hawks' attempts to score, and at the end of the second period the Lions were leading 2-0.
 
The Golden Hawks were finally able to find the back of the Lions' net at 12:04 of the third period, with Neil Aird adding their first goal of the game with the assistance of teammates Braydon Blight and Christian Mroczkowski. The Lions quickly took back control of the puck and added two more goals before the end of the game.
 
The first was scored by Vannucci and assisted by Petersen and Morgan Messenger. The second was a short-handed goal by Scott Feser in which he went in alone on a breakaway and was stopped, but he fired the rebound into the top right corner of the net.
 
The Lions have improved to an 11-4-1 season record with the win, and the Golden Hawks sit at 10-4-2, just one point back.
 
The Lions will play again on Saturday, Dec. 2 at 7:15pm, this time paying a visit to the Ryerson Rams' Mattamy Athletic Centre for their final game before the long December break. The Lions will then return to regular season action on Friday, Jan. 5 when they take on the Brock Badgers at Canlan Ice Sports. Puck drop will be at 7pm.