McGill win thwarts X-MenÕs chances

Courtesy Willy Palov, The Chronicle Herald

The McGill Redmen’s gain is the St. Francis Xavier X-Men’s loss.

McGill beat the Alberta Golden Bears 6-3 at the CIS University Cup men’s hockey championship in Fredericton on Saturday to earn a berth in Sunday’s final. But the result means the X-Men have been eliminated from championship contention.

"We’re disappointed but even when you look back at it right now, it was a tremendous year," said X-Men head coach Brad Peddle. "I think we grew a lot this year as a team. We certainly got better as the year went along and we were playing our best hockey right up to this tournament.

"Even in Game 1, that was a 2-1 (loss to McGill) where we missed two empty nets and hit a crossbar. Obviously the result in the second game (3-1 win over Alberta) was more what we expected and what the team is about, which is that never-say-die attitude. This is a resilient bunch. When you look at the whole year, we’re pleased with the success that we had and the run we went on. But obviously there’s disappointment with coming this close to something we set our goals on."

The X-Men finish the tournament at 1-1 and could have advanced to the final had the Redmen lost by three or more goals. But McGill’s perfect 2-0 record made all that moot.

"I can tell you something about this group, we believed right until the end," Peddle said. "Winning that game yesterday and then getting up this morning and practising, we really believed that we could accomplish it. But the frustrating part was that it was out of our control and … that was a very uncomfortable situation to be in."

The Redmen will now face the UNB Varsity Reds in today’s championship game at 8 p.m. Chris Culligan, Luke Gallant, Hunter Trembley and Kyle Bailey scored for the Varsity Reds in a 4-0 win over the Western Mustangs to clinch their spot in the final.

This is the fist appearance in the CIS championship game for the Redmen. They got two goals from Maxime Langelier-Parent and one each from Ryan McKiernan, Evan Vossen, Alexandre Picard-Hooper and Francis Verreault-Paul in their win over Alberta.