During the UMass hockey team’s trip to Belfast, Northern Ireland, sophomore forward Austin Plevy wrote a journal about the experience for us. Here’s the final entry.
Day 5: Saturday November 26:
The day started on a similar timeline as Friday, because we played again at 4 p.m. We had a quick team breakfast followed by a team dynamic warm up and video session when we got to the rink.
Pre-game meal was ready for us at around 11:30 and then we headed back to the hotel for some rest time prior to the game. I took my usual game day nap, woke up, put on my suit and was ready to go again.
Although we lost the night before, we knew we still had plenty to play for. We wanted to not only win for Coach Carvel, but to leave Belfast on a positive note. The guys were ready to play from the moment we stepped in the rink.
Everyone was in their own zone doing their pregame routines and getting prepared to play. I sat and enjoyed my cup of coffee and thought about the game and my family who made the trip all the way to Ireland and that gave me some extra motivation to play hard and get them a win.
We came out and had a very strong start again which is something we focus on as a team. Freshmen forward Niko Hildenbrand scored our first goal on a puck that bounced in of his body on a feed from Griff Jeszka.
Those were the kind of goals we were looking for; getting the puck to the net and banging in some rebounds in the gritty areas. We played a strong first and game out of it up 1-0. We started the second well again and I was able to find the back of the net on a broken play on the power play.
Sophomore defenseman William Lagesson got one to the net and the rebound was briefly kicked around and senior forward Steven Iacobellis managed to kick the puck out to the backside where I had plenty of net to put it away. St. Lawrence managed to get one back before the end of the period on the power play.
Going into the third period up by a goal, we felt confident we could get the win. We played fast and hard and created some chances we couldn’t quite capitalize on and unfortunately they tied the game up with a few minutes left in the period.
With about a minute left in regulation, Steven Iacobellis was hit pretty hard, drawing a 5-minute power player for us. We couldn’t score one in regulation but still took a few minutes of power play time into the overtime.
Despite some great chances, we weren’t able to capitalize and the game went to a shootout. Now in the standings this counts as tie but goes to a shootout for the sake of the tournament. It was a tense shootout, going five rounds. I scored on my opportunity, but unfortunately that was our only goal and their last shooter scored to seal the win for St. Lawrence.
It was a tough one to swallow because it was another game we led by two goals and could have won, but we were still very proud of the way we played and so was Coach.
Although we didn’t leave Belfast with the results we wanted it was another two games where we grew as a team and made some memories that will last a lifetime. As a team we want to thank the city of Belfast for a great event and all the people who helped make it happen.
From the people at the arena who provide our delicious meals to our bus driver who doubled up as a tour guide and our liaison Father Bryan, they all made out experience one I’ll never forget.
Also thanks to the fans that read and stayed up to date with all the fun things we were doing overseas. I hope it gave you an inside look at our game days routines and maybe even the odd laugh at my attempts at jokes. We appreciate your support and we’ll see you at the Mullins Center this weekend to take on Notre Dame!