Win Over St. Mary's Ends Flyers Hockey Skid

The visiting locker room at Cantiague Park was a little looser, a little more full of noise, a bit more boisterous Thursday night.

“We’re pretty happy right now,”  goalie Brandon Destasio said after a 6-2 win over St. Mary’s.

This is what happens when you break a skid and do so in grand fashion. When you get out to a 1-0 lead 3:02 into the first period and keep adding.

“It was a little frustrating there for a while,” the Flyer starting goalie said. “We almost had a win … but now we got a win under our belt and hopefully it keeps rolling.”

Momentum tends to build in these types of situations. The Chaminade varsity hockey team has been on the  of that for the past three games, -1.

“It finally happened,” assistant Kevin Bendl said, a laugh of relief escaping his lungs at the end of the downward streak. “We switched the lines up a little which kinda worked to our benefit but we did a lot of powerplay (work); definitely we were working offensively.”

The Flyers – second in the league in goals against and second-to last in goals scored – were desperate to put something in the win column with only about four games left on the season, including a match at Fordham on Saturday and another back at Caniague against the Gaels to determine playoff seeding.

“We worked hard at practice so it’s good to get back in the win column,” said forward James Henry, who got another 2 goals Thursday to bring his season total against the Gaels to four. “It was my linemates that did most of the work (Thursday).”

You dare not say that St. Mary’s is an easy matchup – Chaminade only beat them by  – but the Gaels are bottom feeders of the CHSHL this year with a woeful 1-11 record.

“We’ve got to win them all,” Henry said of the games remaining, grinning at his boast. “The team would like to win them all.”

But whether or not the Flyers consider Cantiague their home away from home, they seem comfortable here against this team, outshooting the Gaels 109-46 this season, 62-21 alone on Thursday and not allowing a shot against Destasio for half of the first period, a welcome respite with all the net-minding the Flyer goalie has had to endure.

“I don’t think it has anything to do with the rink,” Destasio said. “I just think we played well today.”