Bears beat Chiefs 4-2 for Dexter tourney crown

ORONO – The University of Maine’s hockey team expected forme ORONO – The University of Maine’s hockey team expected former Maine assistant Bruce Crowder and his University of Massachusetts-Lowell club to give them a lot of trouble in Saturday night’s Dexter Hockey Classic championship game.

That’s exactly what happened, but the Bears received second-period goals 1:39 apart from Cal Ingraham and tournament Most Valauble Player Patrice Tardif; a solid defensive effort and some key saves from Garth Snow to win the fifth annual tourney for the fourth consecutive time, 4-2.

Maine is now 16-2 overall while UM-Lowell fell to 8-8.

Concordia won the consolation game 3-1 over Army.

“Nobody expected it to be easy,” said Maine senior center and tri-captain Mike Barkley. “Bruce knows us.”

“They got great goaltending (from senior Mark Richards) and they’re a very scrappy team,” said Maine Coach Shawn Walsh. “The thing I was most pleased about was the emergence of Tardif and the play of our defense. Without two excellent defenseman (Chris Imes and Matt Martin) in the lineup, we still held a high-scoring team to two goals and 19 shots on goal.”

UMass-Lowell entered the game averaging 4.9 goals per game.

“The kids played hard,” said Crowder. “I was pleased that we were able to hold Maine to four goals. That’s what we wanted to do, especially after giving up 14 last weekend against North Dakota. We were lackadaisical in the first period. I made some rookie coach’s mistakes. But I thought we played pretty well in the third until we took a couple of crazy penalties.”

Maine took a 2-0 lead in the first period on a power-play goal by Jean-Yves Roy and senior defenseman Tony Link’s first collegiate goal in 92 career games.

UML’s Don Parsons cut the lead in half at the 9:20 mark of the second period, but Ingraham scored 1:32 later and Tardif followed at the 12:31 mark to make it 4-1. Mike Murray scored late in the middle period to slice the lead to 4-2.

The Chiefs’ Gerry Daley had a breakaway early in the third period, but Snow got his glove on the shot and it popped high in the air.

“I had made up my mind to go high glove side and I wanted to get it off quickly,” said Daley, who didn’t think he got his shot off quickly enough.

“I gave him that side. That’s where I was hoping he’d shoot it,” said Snow.

Roy opened the scoring at the 7:03 mark when he one-timed a Lee Saunders pass between Richards’ right skate and the post. Saunders had gotten the puck at the point off a Jim Montgomery faceoff draw.

Link scored at the 12:49 mark when he had his initial slap shot blocked, got the puck back and fired a 25-foot backhander over Richards’ glove.

“He (Richards) was still down after the first shot so I got it on the backhand and gave it all I had,” said Link.

Richards said, “That was a great shot. There was a lot of traffic in front.”

Parsons scored midway through the second period when he took a Dave Pensa pass, made a couple of great moves in the slot and slipped a 10-footer past Snow.

But the Chiefs’ momentum was short-lived when Ingraham took a pass from Scott Pellerin, fought off a backchecker and lifted the puck past Richards’ blocker.

“I tried to block off the backchecker with my body,” explained Ingraham. “I got the puck on my backhand, I moved it to my forehand, made a quick fake and shot it. It was a lucky goal.”

Moments later, Randy Olson stole the puck from Chiefs defenseman Adam Hooper and got off a quick backhanded that rebounded to Tardif.

“I took a backhander and he got a piece of it,” said Tardif.

“I think it went over the top of me,” said Richards, who had the puck trickle behind him.

Murray, set up by Greg Carter, scored from a difficult angle through the pads of Snow.

Tardif had five goals and two assists en route to MVP honors and said, “It’s nice to be named MVP. But I give all the credit to my linemates (Mike Barkley and Olson).”

The All-Tourney team was comprised of Maine LW Pellerin, (2 goals, 3 assists), RW Ingraham (3 & 1), and defenseman Jason Weinrich (0 & 2); UMass-Lowell center Parsons (2 & 0) and defenseman Scott Meehan; (solid defensive play); and Concordia goalie Robert Desjardins. (3.01 goals-against average, .917 save percentage).