It was more a symbolic moment than a meaningful one.
But if two goals in the opening four minutes weren’t enough to confirm it was going to be a long afternoon for the Kitchener Rangers Sunday, an ill-advised squirt of a water bottle sure did.
Down 2-0 early, Rangers captain Rickard Hugg, he of eight penalty minutes in 148 career OHL games, was handed a 10-minute misconduct when he squirted Guelph Storm forward Nate Schnarr with water as Schnarr skated past the Kitchener bench.
By the time Hugg rejoined the fray it was 3-0 and before the first period was over it was 4-0, as Guelph eventually rolled to a 7-0 victory.
The win puts the Storm up 2-0 in the best-of-seven series with Game 3 set for Kitchener on Tuesday.
“We know we have a lot of young players up front. We can’t be losing one of our top players for 10 minutes in the opening period of a game. That one hurt,” said Rangers coach Jay McKee.
“We’re just not deep enough to have top players in the penalty box.
“It’s hard not to get emotional at the beginning of the game. Sometimes, when you let that emotion show and you don’t hold it in you do the wrong things,” McKee said.
As they did in the series opener on Friday, Guelph was all over Kitchener in the opening 20 minutes.
But unlike Friday they didn’t let them back into it as the game wore on.
It was 4-0 after one period and 6-0 after two as Storm goaltender Anthony Popovich recorded a tidy 22-save shutout.
Liam Hawel had a pair of goals and Nate Schnarr had four assists to lead the offence.
“We knew we had a really good start on Friday but we kind of let them back in it,” Hawel said.
“Today we just had to focus on playing the game all the way through. That’s what we did and it kind of showed on the scoreboard.”
Rangers goaltender Luke Richardson allowed six goals on 25 shots before getting the hook after 40 minutes.
“Our depth is our strongest point, we’ve got four great lines,” Hawel said. “We have four lines who can play with anyone, so you don’t really get tired, you get lots of rest, and you go 100 per cent every shift.”
Maintaining that intensity for 60 minutes will be important back at the Aud Tuesday.
“We know that if we let up, those guys can beat us on any given night,” he said. “We’ve played these guys where we haven’t played a full 60 minutes and they’ve bit us. We have to play the whole game through.”
Game 4 will be Thursday in Kitchener. Game 5, if necessary, is in Guelph on Friday. That game would also be broadcast on Sportsnet.
