TORONTO, Ont. – The Gryphons men's hockey team travelled to Toronto on Wednesday night for the first of their back to back games this week. They took on the newly named Toronto Metropolitan University Bold, formerly known as the Ryerson Rams, in a battle of two top teams in the OUA Western Conference. The Bold, who are ranked #7 in the nation, proved to be a tough test for the Gryphons, coming back from a 3-0 deficit to edge the Gryphons in overtime.
 
The first period of this game appeared to be a goalie battle as both sides were held scoreless for nearly 20 minutes. After some strong offensive zone possession, Gryphons captain Ted Nichol got the puck in the corner and spun off his check while firing a backhand pass to Luke Bignell, who was able to get loose from his man in front of the net just in time to chip the puck over the TMU netminder's pad. The Gryphons took a 1-0 lead into the first intermission.
 
Midway through the second period, Jacob Winterton jumped on a TMU turnover in the neutral zone. He found Cam Searles on the wing who went in on a 2 on 1 with Ted McGeen. Searles was able to slide a nice cross-ice pass to Ted Mcgeen and McGeen fired a laser over the shoulder of the TMU goalie. Shortly afterwards, Anthony Tabak and Luke Kutcevicius connected on a 3 on 2 where Kutcevicius found a broken pass from Tabak and buried it to put the Gryphons up 3-0.
 
TMU came out with a lot of energy in the third period, making it very difficult for the Gryphons to hang onto their 3-0 lead. TMU slowly chipped away in the third period. 3 unanswered goals from Kevin Gursoy, Jesse Barwell and Elijah Roberts tied the game for the Bold and forced an extra overtime period.
 
The Gryphons started out the overtime period with some promising scoring chances but after a Gryphons player was tripped up at the opposing teams' blueline, the TMU Bold went in on a 2 on 0 and Ryan Wells scored to end the game and give TMU a 4-3 victory.
 
The Gryphons will look to get right back in the win column tomorrow night as they take on Lakehead in their first of 3 straight home games.