On Saturday, SFU was able to squeak out a 2–0 victory over local rivals Trinity Western. It was a game that was vastly different from the previous night, where SFU won 10–5, scoring five goals in the third period alone. The Clan came out and played a very tight, defensive game that was still highly entertaining.
“I thought it was one of those games where you have to guts out a victory,” said Head Coach Mark Coletta afterwards. “It’s even both ways, both teams are playing with injured players, and you go from one night where there’s 15 goals to a night where there’s only two. It’s a character win, and we’ll take those.”
The first period was marked by penalties. A total of eight were taken by both teams, five by Simon Fraser. In the second, Brandon Tidy broke the deadlock, scoring in his fourth straight game off a fortunate bounce. Jono Ceci sealed it in the third period with an empty net goal, his second point of the night and the team-leading 25th point. The majority of the game was quite defensive, with both teams determined to tighten up after the goal fest of the previous game.
The big story of the game, however, was Clan goaltender Jordan Liem. He made 33 saves that night gaining the win and a shutout. He made a number of terrific saves, including an amazing cross-crease save early in the third period to preserve the one goal lead.
“Try to keep calm,” said Liem on what went through his mind late in the game. “Usually when the play’s in your end you’re not usually thinking too much. But when it goes down the other way, you’re definitely trying not to say the word ‘shutout’ in your head, or trying not to think of the end of the game with a shutout. You’re just trying to keep your team in it with a 1–0 lead.”
Another big story afterwards was the unsportsmanlike conduct penalties that SFU took during the game. The Clan took three of them during the game, two of them after ordinary cross checking and slashing calls. This meant regular two-minute penalties turned into massive four-minute kills for the SFU penalty kill.
“I don’t think he likes us very much, to be honest,” said Liem afterwards. “I think we rubbed him the wrong way right off the bat, with [Matthew] Luongo being a little lippy. We know him from before and he’s just that kind of ref where if you get on his bad side, you’re on his bad side for the rest of the game.”
With top pairing defensemen Jesse Williamson still out, Dustin Cave stepped into his spot alongside Darnel St. Pierre. “The Caveman” filled in nicely, providing a number of bone-crunching hits throughout the game, and seemed to have instant chemistry with St. Pierre.
“They’re finally coming into their own,” said Coletta on the pairing. “They’re first-year guys, and it takes time for these guys to get used to this style of hockey. Everybody always thinks that the BCIHL is a collegiate league that isn’t that great, and we don’t get much respect. Which is fine. When they come from Junior A or Junior B and they’re the big guys in the pond, they come play for us, they realise how good this league really is.
“Cave and St. Pierre are very physical guys, and that’s what we need them to do, and they did that tonight.”
