Dumont sends the Volts into the Semi's

Press Release

RIMOUSKI, Que. -- Gabriel Dumont scored 13:23 into overtime as the Drummondville Voltigeurs pulled out a victory in a game in which they were badly outplayed by the Rimouski Oceanic on Wednesday night at the MasterCard Memorial Cup.

The win puts Drummondville through to the semifinals of the four-team tournament while Rimouski must play the Windsor Spitfires in a tiebreaker game Thursday night to determine the second semifinalist.

The winner of the semifinal game will face the Kelowna Rockets in the final.

The Oceanic had a 41-20 shot advantage and controlled most of the game but were thwarted time and again by the superb play of goalie Marco Cousineau.

After a faceoff in the Rimouski zone, the Voltigeurs got the puck to the net where Dumont batted at it and saw it slide past the sprawled Maxime Gougeon.

Patrice Cormier, leader of Rimouski's C-line with Philippe Cornet and Jordan Caron, tied the game early in the third period as the Oceanic rode the energy of its chanting home fans. Luca Cunti also scored for the Oceanic.

Jonathan Brunelle and Dmitry Kulikov had the other goals for Drummondville, which swept a best-of-seven series from Rimouski in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League semifinals a month ago.

The largest crowd of the tournament so far of 5,062 fans was two deep in the standing room, and the home side stormed out of the gate, outshooting the Voltigeurs 11-4 in the opening period.

Cousineau made spectacular glove saves on Cornet and Caron during three Rimouski power plays.

It continued in the second and produced the first goal as Felix Lefrancois threw the puck to the net and Cunti poked in his second of the tournament at 1:39.

But after the initial onslaught, Drummondville got some chances and found that while Gougeon, who was brilliant when facing a lot of shots in earlier games, struggled when facing just a few.

At 6:07, Brunelle got a second chance on a break to the net and slid it by Gougeon on his team's sixth shot of the game.

On Drummondville's first full power play, Kulikov's low point shot went between Gougeon's pads at 11:56 on the Voltigeurs' eighth shot.

The Oceanic poured it on again in the third, controlling the neutral zone, dumping pucks in and pounding the Drummondville defence. They tied it on a power play at 5:23 when two Volts at the blue-line went to Cornet, who slipped the puck to Cormier to score on a wrist shot from the slot.

Notes -- The ceremonial face-off featured Oceanic alumni Vincent Lecavalier, Brad Richards and Michel Ouellet along with Quebec sports minister Michelle Courchesne and team owner Maurice Tanguay.


(Nathan also is a writer for Maineiacs Post to Post and the Maine Hockey Journal. He can be reached at fourniern@students.nescom.edu)