Defending OUA champions the Guelph Gryphons men’s hockey team faced off against the Western Mustangs in the sixth annual Frosty Mug game at the Sleeman Centre in front of a record-breaking crowd of raucous fans. The enthusiastic support, however, was not enough to propel them to victory. Former Colorado Avalanche second-round pick Peter Delmas had a spectacular game in goal for the Western Mustangs, who eked out a 3-2 win to spoil the Gryphons’ fun. Both teams struggled to keep their momentum, but while Guelph had a clear physical edge and appeared to have the Mustangs on their heels at times, it just wasn’t enough.
In the first period, Guelph had several full or partial breakaways, as well as a blocked 2-on-1 opportunity, but couldn’t seem to make it past Delmas. Guelph took a few penalties early on, and despite some good, physical penalty killing, the Mustangs would capitalize midway through the first period for the only goal. Guelph looked to be out-chancing and out-hitting the Mustangs, but were missing a lot of easy passes and making costly mistakes.
After a brief break and some entertainment from the Gryphon figure skaters, Guelph began to get some power play opportunities of their own, but to no avail. It wasn’t until midway through the frame that Rob De Fulviis would break the home team’s goose egg with a breakaway five-hole deke. The stands, now mostly full, were loud and proud of their Gryphons, even getting a wave going. Western had a few more power play opportunities, but did not look as composed as Guelph. Gryphons goalie Andrew D’Agostini would not be outdone by his purple counterpart, although he was not relied upon as heavily. Guelph almost caught Western on a bad change late in the period, but would only carry the one goal into the intermission.
After more entertainment from the Gryphons figure skaters (this time with pickup trucks!) and some quality DJ work to keep the crowd into it, the game resumed. Western did their best to quiet the crowd with an early goal, and the crowd went silent when D’Agostini appeared to become injured after getting slide-tackled by a wayward opponent, but he would stay in the game. The fans were just starting to grab their coats when Dylan Gilbert stole the puck and rifled it top corner to even things at two goals each, but Western immediately responded to kill the momentum. Guelph would get a couple more chances before a hitting from behind misconduct penalty was called with 4:07 left in play, putting the final nail in the home team’s coffin.
After a whistle in Western’s end with a minute and a half to go, Guelph called a timeout and pulled the goalie in an effort to fight their way back into the game, but a furious late charge would not be enough. However, they did start a brawl after the final whistle to give the fans something to cheer about.
In reality, this was a winnable game for Guelph. The score could just have easily been 4-1 for the Gryphons had they capitalized on a few of their many breakaways or good scoring chances. Though the shot total was even, the Gryphons seemed to be out-chancing the Mustangs. However, after a loss, the many bad penalties and missed passes look a lot worse than they would after winning. The Gryphons have a lot of work to do if they want a shot at repeating as provincial champions.