This past Saturday Oxford’s Men’s Ice Hockey Team continued its impressive streak of league dominance with its tenth straight victory (going back to the beginning of last season). In front of a sizeable home crowd, the Blues ratcheted a 10-5 victory over the Warwick Panthers, improving its current season record to 2-0.

“It was a good home win,” said Blues first year player Tim Macholtz, “especially since we weren’t able to set our home fixtures until the season had basically already gotten underway. It was good to get that all sorted and capitalize on home ice.”

It didn’t take long for Oxford to get on the board. Merely seven seconds after the drop of the puck, Blues rookie sensation Parker Carney one-timed home his fourth goal of the season to give Oxford a lead they would not relinquish for the rest of the match. Carney went on to tally four more goals and two assists over the course of the night, bringing his season total to eight goals and four assists in two games. The Blues’ first line of Carney and Assistant Captains William Bruce and Landis Stankievech wreaked havoc on the Panthers’ defense, contributing more than the majority of Oxford’s 69 shots on goal, netting nine of the team’s ten goals in the match, and accumulating 16 points on top of last week’s 22-point performance. Bruce tallied his second goal in as many games just before the seven-minute marker of the first period. Stankievech potted his second hat trick of the season by the end of the match.

Also contributing to the Blues’ scores was team captain Ruben Leavitt. Leavitt, taking advantage of poor defensive coverage by the Panthers, netted his first of the season on an unassisted wrap-around goal and on what happened to be his 24th birthday.

After the match, the Oxford captains recounted how, while this was an important victory, it also revealed some of Blues’ profound weaknesses. Giving up five goals, they felt, exposed Oxford’s weak team defense, something everyone would have to work hard to improve before next week’s match against league powerhouse London (who defeated Warwick 17-1 the weekend prior). Their first two matches were relatively easy victories, they felt. Next week will be a totally different story. Also, the team finds itself suffering from an increasing number of injured players. Against Warwick, the Blues managed to field a mere two full lines. The team will likely have the same number of players against a much deeper London team next week. “We need to work hard this week in preparation for a huge match against London, but we also need to focus on getting everyone healthy and back to 100 percent” said former team captain and current player Julian de Hoog. While the London match is important, he added, the team needs to also think about the rest of the season and what’s best for the team to achieve the best overall season results.

For their next match, Oxford will take on London in London this coming Saturday at 22:45.