Acadia squeak out win in Game 1 of Keating Cup

(Wolfville, NS) In Game 1 of Keating Cup exhibition play on Tuesday night, the Acadia Axemen hockey squad downed the visiting StFX X-Men 4-3 in the first of two games scheduled against the two teams in the third annual event.

The Keating Cup was started in 2006 by the X-Men in honor of the late Charles V. Keating, alumnus and longtime friend of StFX University and strong supporter of StFX Athletics and the X-Men hockey program. 

A different format then the four-team invitational played the previous two years, AUS rivals StFX and Acadia are playing a two-game Keating Cup challenge. Should the X-Men win Game 2 on Friday night, the Keating Cup will be decided by a ten minute overtime period and shootout, if necessary, immediately following the game.

In Game 1, Acadia's Tyler Whitehead picked up the first of four Axemen goals on a nice pass fed by Nathan Welton that gave Whitehead a breakaway at the three minute mark of the first period.

The X-Men responded two minutes later with a goal by Brett Robertson, his first of two goals, to tie the game at one. Robertson gave the X-Men a 2-1 lead on the StFX powerplay in the opening two minutes of the second period.

Jamie Klie's shot from the high slot off of a lose puck tied the game at two with just over a minute remaining in the second period. First year forward Ryan Graham gave the Axemen the 3-2 lead at 5:49 of the third frame, but that lead was lost with a minute and 11 seconds remaining in the game when X-Man Brett Morrison tied the game.

With 13 seconds remaining in the game, Axeman Paul Kurceba deflected the game winning goal off of a Jonathan Laberge shot to give the Axemen a 4-3 win. Kurceba was named the player of the game for his game winning goal while StFX's Brett Robertson was named the X-Men's player of the game with two goals.

For only the fourth time this season, have the Axemen been out-shot by an opponent.  StFX had a 33-29 shots on net advantage in the losing cause.

As mentioned, Acadia will travel to Antigonish on Friday, January 2nd to play the X-Men in the final Keating Cup exhibition game. Game time is slated for 7:00 pm and should the X-Men win Game 2, the teams will play a 10-minute overtime period (and shootout if necessary) to determine this year’s Keating Cup winner. The X-Men are two-time defending champions of the Cup.

Game summary courtesy Acadia Sports Information