Eagles not about to concede anything
Published Wednesday October 28th, 2009
Technically at least, he is a rookie to The Rivalry, getting his first taste of The Battle of The Hill tonight at 7 p.m. when the St. Thomas Tommies host the University of New Brunswick Varsity Reds at the Lady Beaverbrook Rink.
In fact, though, 21-year-old center Matt Eagles has been immersed in it for years.
True, he's a freshman. But his dad, Mike Eagles, is now in his eighth season behind the bench for the Atlantic University Sport Men's Hockey Conference entry and in his second as the athletic director.
And Matt has lived it even longer than that.
His uncle, Mark Hegarty, played for the Tommies in the mid-1980s, before Matt was born. He was coaching and scouting for the program by the time Matt was born in 1988, so Matt was exposed to the Tommies' brand early.
He gravitated towards the Tommies when the Eagles' family returned to Fredericton after the completion of Mike's National Hockey League career. Matt was a Grade 7 student and a first year peewee then. He played through the minor system here before being drafted to Moncton and putting in four good years with the Wildcats.
"For me, this is like the Stanley Cup finals," he said as he prepared for the first of four regular season meetings between the teams and the first since the V-Reds rolled to an 8-1 win in the Presidents Cup match Sept. 15.
Tickets can be purchased at MacTavish For Sports today from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., at the J. B. O'Keefe Fitness Centre from 9-5 p.m. and at the LBR Box Office beginning at 5:30. The game can also be heard on on CHSR-FM, 97.9 beginning with V-Reds Game Day at 6:30 and The Wolf, 95.7.
"I've always been a guy that roots for the underdog," said the younger Eagles. "The smaller school, I guess it always kind of mirrored me as a player, because I was always a smaller guy."
He still is - listed officially at five-foot-nine and 185 pounds - but it hasn't hindered him so far. Eagles spent four seasons with the Wildcats, where he was the team captain and leading scorer last year, with 29 goals and 36 assists for 65 points, and 55 penalty minutes in 68 games.
Saturday night, he collected a goal and three assists and was the game's first star as the Tommies rolled to a 9-3 win over the Dalhousie Tigers. He was ejected eight minutes into Friday night's game for checking-from-behind and the Tommies missed him as they blew a five-goal lead and fell 7-6 to the St. Francis Xavier X-Men.
Eagles and Co. will try to break a 19-game losing streak against the V-Reds, extending back to Oct. 20, 2006. Tommies were 3-1 winners that night at the LBR, the third game of the regular season that year. They've been outscored 109-37 in the 19 head-to-head meetings since.
A win over the V-Reds, off to a 4-0 start to the regular season and 12-1 overall including the exhibition slate, would seem like a tall order for the 2-2 Tommies, especially if their ranks are reduced to four defencemen, as they were for the last half of the game against the Tigers Saturday night.
Defencemen Bryan Main and Keith Wynn both left the game with injuries, Main on a backboard when he fell heavily into the end boards in pursuit of a puck when he became entangled with Dal's Ben Van Lare with two seconds left in the first period.
He was taken to hospital, where a CT scan proved negative and he was released. He didn't practice Tuesday and listed as doubtful for tonight's faceoff.
Wynn also fell heavily into the end boards in the first period against Dal and wrenched a knee. He tried it briefly in the second period, but took another hit midway through and didn't return. But coach Eagles says Wynn practised Tuesday and will be available tonight.
Four lines of relentless forechecking against four defencemen in the tight quarters of the LBR would seem to tilt the odds even further toward the V-Reds.
But the Tommies got solid goaltending from Charles Lavigne Saturday, and, the forwards, by order of coach Eagles, were more diligent defensively than they had been the previous evening against St. FX. So the Tommies aren't conceding anything.
"If we don't believe in ourselves, who's going to believe in us?" said Matt Eagles. "That's the mentality we've got to have. We've got to battle like crazy and see what happens."
He also credits goaltender Lavigne as a guy "who can steal a game for us," he said. "He can make 50 saves. He's a warrior."
Lavigne is steeled for lots of rubber.
"You never know," Lavigne was saying after a solid performance against the Tigers the other night. "The way we played in the first period (Friday) night, if we can play like that for 60 minutes, we can give them a good run, that's for sure. Our team has progressed a lot since two months ago. We're going to scare a lot of people this year."
Based on the early returns at least, the Tommies have four pretty good lines. Eagles, Welcher and Labonte clicked for 11 points in all Saturday night. The fourth line trio of Brad Gallant, Andrew Estey and Corey Banfield combined for a couple of goals, too. The night before, the combination of Mike Reich, Kenton Dulle and former UNBer Tyler Deitrich were the Tommies' most effective offensive weapons.
"When we go out and execute our game plan, we can play with teams and we can compete with any team in the league," said Matt Eagles. "It's very important that we can't take shifts off. When we do play our game, we're very effective."
Eagles calls on an analogy from his former coach in Moncton, Danny Flynn.
"When you're a team that's going up against guys with a little bit more talent, you've got to stick together," said Eagles. "He always used to say that if your fist is smaller than the other team's fist, you've got to squeeze it even tighter," he said. "You've got to be a tight knit group, and that's the way we've got to play."
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