Facing the tough Redhawks from  the Cardiff University, the Men’s Blues ice hockey team proved their pedigree on Sunday evening with a 10-7 win in a hard-fought match. The long journey to Wales was made especially sweet for Soohong Park, whose solid goaltending earned him not only his first victory in a Cambridge jersey but also the man of the match honours.

Park faced a total of 47 shots over three periods of work but was more than up to the task, making several high-quality saves against an aggressive Cardiff squad who were searching for their second victory of the year.

The Welsh team came out strong against the Blues in the first period, throwing a number of bone-crushing body checks. Cardiff skated hard in an attempt to capitalise on the fact that the Blues were playing their second game in three nights and had put up with a four hour bus journey to arrive at the match. 

This was perhaps a factor early on as the Light Blues struggled to find their skating legs.  Indeed, the away side soon found themselves in trouble when defenceman Teal Bondaroff and winger Owen Randlett took successive minor penalties for cross-checking and roughing respectively. As a result, Cardiff  quickly found themselves with a 3-1 lead after the first five minutes of action.  Wanting to stamp their authority as the home side, they continually drove the net and picked up loose rebounds.

The rest of the first period was a entirely different story, however.  A late rally from Cambridge saw them  reverse the scoreboard before the second period after a swift succession of goals by Graham Courtright, Dan Tavana, and Andrew Buddle took the games to 4-3.

Rough play continued to be a feature after the restart and Blues forward Taylor Burns was given a major penalty and game misconduct for fighting with a Cardiff player after a fierce battle in front of the net. 

Blues assistant captain and offensive leader Peter Morelli set up two of the first period goals and went on to score three goals himself while Tavana, Buddle, Kevin Musselman, and Adrian Camacho-Fielding continued the attack as Cambridge took control of the game and held on for an impressive victory.

The Blues will have to wait to extend their winning ways until November 21st when they face-off against Cardiff at Peterborough in a what should be an exciting rematch.