(Canton, MI) – The Concordia men's hockey team hosted their home opener and first ever home contest at the Arctic Edge of Canton on Saturday evening against the Oakland Golden Grizzlies. After a back-and-forth opening period, the Cardinals pulled away for an 8-2 win to secure the series sweep.
Anthony Seykora started the game in net, making 17 saves on 19 shots faced on the way to the win.
Oakland got on the board first, intercepting a CUAA breakout pass and converting to take a 1-0 lead just 1:31 into the contest. After some pressure by Concordia, the Cards finally broke through just after the halfway point of the 1st, as Shane Romback took a pass from Zane Rydel and fired a shot through a screen on the powerplay that beat the Golden Grizzlies goalie to tie the contest. Less than two minutes later, Kyle Hebner picked up a loose puck off a faceoff and put it into the net to give the Cardinals their first lead of the night. Nicholas Twombley and Quinn Bieniek recorded assists on the score.
After another Oakland goal late in the period, Derek Hebner picked up a puck off the wall, pulled it to the middle of the zone, and fired a shot into the top left corner for another Cardinals score, giving Concordia the 3-2 lead just before the opening frame ended.
CUAA got off to a fast start in the second period, as Quinn Bieniek (with assists by Twombley and Jackson Blough) found the back of the net just 2:37 into the frame, followed by Shane Romback's second goal (unassisted) of the game just over two minutes later to make it a 5-2 Cardinals lead.
At the 12:59 mark of the middle period, Seth Francois picked up his second score of the weekend with a goal from a weird angle to extend the Concordia lead to 4. Brandon Troyer and Brayden Tayles were credited with the assists on the play. After a brief lull in scoring following the Cardinal onslaught of goals, Derek Hebner found the back of the net for the second time in the evening as well at the 5:23 mark of the 2nd, and the Cards held the 7-2 lead from there all the way into the intermission.
In a third period that contained a laundry list of penalties and man advantages, CUAA took advantage of an odd man rush at the end of their five-minute penalty kill, as Brayden Tayles fed Brandon Troyer for a 2-on-1 opportunity, and Troyer hit Riley Smith with a pass that Smith put into the back of the net to make it an 8-2 advantage for the Cards, which they would ride through the end of the contest on the way to their second victory in two days.
Concordia will be back in action next Friday night as they head to UM-Dearborn for their first WHAC matchup of the 2022-23 season. Puck drop is set for 7pm at the UM-Dearborn Ice Arena in Dearborn, MI.