Playoff hockey is not for the weak.

It is physical, demanding, gutsy and flawed.

Last week, the Davidson Cyclones senior men’s hockey team put on display all four of those characteristics in an outstanding 7-0 provincial “C” quarter-final win over the Kyle Elks Feb. 23 and a heartbreaking 5-4 loss to the LeRoy Braves last Wednesday in semi-final Long Lake Hockey League (LLHL) playoff competition.

Both games featured hard-hitting end-to-end action where all players involved gave their best, but in the end it was a goalpost that stopped the Cyclones from completing a perfect playoff week.

“We played well enough to win, but we never got the bounces our own way,” said Cyclones forward Brett Siroski on the Braves game.

One of those bounces was a shot by Davidson defenceman Zack Sim that rang off the post with 25 seconds left in the third and would have tied the game at fives. That post stopped a comeback tie for the Cyclones, which would have forced the game into extra frames and given Davidson a chance at tying the series at one game apiece.

With the loss, the Cyclones fall to 0-2 in the best of five LLHL series.

Leading up to that post, the Cyclones were dominating the Braves continually pushing the play into the LeRoy defensive zone and peppering Braves goaltender Blair Miskolczi with shots.

“He made a lot of good saves,” said Siroski, adding Miskolcki also did the same thing to them in game one, a 9-1 Braves victory Feb. 22 at the LeRoy Rink.

Carter Smith, scoring his second of the night at the 11-minute mark of the third and Cyclones captain Derek Allan potting one with 1:38 left to go in the game made it close, but Miskolczi and his post made sure that would be all.

“It was a good game,” said Cyclones head coach Jason Shaw. “We had lots of chances to score, but we just hit posts and crossbars. LeRoy is a good team and I thought we were right there to the end.”

To read more please see the March 4 print edition of The Davidson Leader.