Oceanic and Voltigeurs Finish Round-Robin Action Wednesday
Rimouski, QC – Two teams that are very familiar with each other, the host Rimouski Oceanic and the QMJHL Champion Drummondville Voltigeurs, will take to the ice Wednesday night at 7:00 pm to close out the round-robin at the 2009 MasterCard Memorial Cup. The game can be seen live on Rogers Sportsnet and RDS as well as through webcast provided by TELUS and on the NHL Network in the United States.
The stakes are high for the game tonight as the winner will advance straight to Friday’s semi-final contest while the losing team will face the Spitfires in a tie-breaker game Thursday night.
The Oceanic (1-1) enter the contest with some momentum generated by a big 5-4 win Sunday afternoon over the Windsor Spitfires. The Voltigeurs (1-1) last skated on Monday to a tough 6-4 loss to the Kelowna Rockets.
Oceanic Captain Olivier Fortier has two assists so far in the tournament as does big forward Kevin Veilleux. They both trail Marc-Andre Bourdon who leads the club with three assists. The Oceanic have spread out their goal-scoring with six different players finding the net after two games.
Yannick Riendeau was silent in the first game of the tournament before elevating his play and notching one goal and three assists for four points in the 6-4 loss to the Rockets on Monday. Marc-Olivier Vachon will look to continue his offensive play after scoring two goals Monday night.
These two teams faced each other in the QMJHL semi-finals with the Voltigeurs sweeping the best-of-seven matchup with scores of 8-1, 4-3, 6-4, and 7-2. The teams also met three times in the regular season with the Voltigeurs winning two but falling to the Oceanic 6-5 in a shootout back in February.
Marco Cousineau is likely start in goal for the Voltigeurs and Maxim Gougeon will start in net for the Oceanic.
The Oceanic will surely have the strength of a noisy and energetic crowd behind them.
Neither team held practice this morning.
Photo by Aaron Bell/CHL