By Reece Bastien – Contributor

The Bishop’s club hockey team travelled down to Westchester, Pennsylvania early in the morning on March 7. With the bus loaded and everybody accounted for, they embarked on an 11-hour bus ride down to the states. Upon arriving at the hotel, the players found some food and took to their beds in preparation for the game the next morning.

Day one of the tournament started off with staff greeting the team upon their arrival at the arena. They checked everyone in and gave everyone a bag full of AAU Nationals’ merch.

Game one found the boys on rink four facing off against the sixteenth-ranked Vanderbilt Commodores. It quickly became clear that Bishop’s outmatched the Vanderbilt side in talent, speed and physicality. This being said, they ran into a former NCAA Division 3 goalie who stood on his head on the Vanderbilt side to keep the game close. The scoreboard read 2-1 for Bishop’s heading into the second intermission. Bishop’s came out firing in the third period, proving to be too much for the Vanderbilt goalie to manage and ended up coming out on top 5-2. Cody Morton, Fred Grenon, Marc Lagacé, Liam Llewellyn and Nico Deichmann were the goal scorers for BU while Reece Bastien earned the win between the pipes.

Day two saw Bishop’s take on the eleventh-ranked Clemson Tigers. The team came out flat to start the game, with Clemson dominating the ice. Bastien maintained a solid performance, as the scoreboard only read 1-0 at the end of the period.

Sadly, the team couldn’t find their jump in the second period as the Tigers continued their onslaught. Andrew Delage found himself between the pipes late in the second period, with the team finishing the period down 5-0. At the end of the game, the scoreboard read 8-1 for the Tigers, with Graydon Hartley scoring the lone goal late in the third period for Bishop’s.

Looking to bounce back from the tough loss to Clemson, the team took on number six-ranked Liberty Flames on the third day of the tournament. Bishop’s appeared to be the better team throughout the early game. Despite this, the scoreboard read 3-0 for the Flames halfway through the second period. With eight minutes left in the third period, Liam Llewellyn would open the floodgates for Bishop’s. This would be followed by Marc Lagacé, Ryan Massicotte, Joe Aubert and Fred Grenon capping off a five-goal run in under eight minutes for Bishop’s. Joe Aubert would once again find the back of the net in the third period to make it 6-3 for Bishop’s, the final score of the game. Goalie Andrew Delages secured a winning performance in the net for Bishop’s.

The team unfortunately missed out on competing in the final round of eight by just one goal against the eighth-seed Tennessee Vols. This being said, the time spent at nationals will be life-lasting memories for the team. Whether it be Keyan Hogan and Joe Aubert’s electric interviews, Nico Deichmann blowing a kiss after scoring a goal or just the time spent together, the boys will cherish these moments forever.