ORONO, Maine — It was a special evening at the University of Maine’s Alfond Arena on Wednesday night.
More than 1,000 fans turned out for the Puck Cancer game in honor of the late UMaine hockey captain and longtime Bangor resident Guy Perron, and they saw his son Marc-Andre Perron’s Bangor High School Rams use a four-goal second period to beat the Hampden Academy Broncos 6-3.
Class A Bangor improved to 4-1 while Class B Hampden Academy fell to 2-2, with both losses coming to Bangor.
Perron died of pancreatic cancer on May 2.
Proceeds from the game will go to the Guy Perron Memorial Scholarship Fund and the Purple Iris Foundation for families who have been impacted by cancer.
Also honored was Todd Cray, father of former Hampden hockey captain Dylan McCray. Todd Cray died of pancreatic cancer in 2017.
The players were wearing UMaine jerseys, with the Rams sporting the dark Black Bear road jerseys and HA donning the white home jerseys. They were raffled off and presented to the raffle winners after the game.
Perron honored his father by scoring a third-period goal that gave his Rams some valuable breathing room after the Broncos had scored twice earlier in the period to pull within two goals.
Following his playing career, Guy Perron was a longtime coach, including stints as an assistant with the UMaine men’s team, the head UMaine women’s hockey coach, the Bangor High School head coach and, in recent years, as a Rams assistant coach.
He was also influential as an administrator with the Maine Junior Black Bears youth hockey program.
Bangor sophomore goalie Cody McCue finished with 20 saves on 23 shots in posting the victory.
Sophomore Aidan Surran had 25 stops on 30 saves through two periods for Hampden before junior Levi Christian stopped 13 of 14 in the third period.
Bangor outshot Hampden 44-23.
Rams senior defenseman Jackson Guimond scored the only goal in the first period before senior left wing Miles Randall, senior center Michael Moscone and sophomore center Chase Caron scored goals just 2:45 apart in the second period to expand the lead to 4-0.
Senior defenseman Colin McKay put the Broncos on the scoreboard with 4:07 left in the period, just 27 seconds after Caron’s goal, but Moscone notched his second of the period with only 4.8 seconds left to make it 5-1.
Matt Shayne gave the Broncos some life with a wrist shot from the slot 21 seconds into the third period for his fourth goal of the year and Lucas Dunn made things interesting by nudging the puck over the goal line with 9:02 remaining. It was his team-leading seventh goal.
But Perron iced it when he received a Caron pass in the low slot and used his reach to pull the puck around Christian and backhand it into the net with 7:34 remaining. It was his third goal of the year.
“I wanted that goal so badly,” Perron said. “So I was camping there (in front of the net) the whole shift. Chase made a very good play. He won a 50-50 puck and chipped it to me and I was all alone with the goalie.”
Perron, the youngest of Guy and Renee Perron’s three children, said the night was very special. The Perron family was honored during a pre-game ceremony and received a special jersey.
He enjoyed the ceremony, “but when the puck dropped, I was pretty head-on competitive and trying to win the game, for sure,” he said
“It was a great game,” Moscone said. “The boys really performed and I’m really happy because we were doing it for one of our brothers.”
Randall opened the second-period flurry at the 7:41 mark with his third goal of the season.
Perron received the puck from Guimond just outside the offensive blue line and slipped a short pass ahead to Randall, who skated onto the puck and snapped a wrist shot from the left faceoff that sailed over the glove of Surran.
Moscone made it 3-1 1:50 later when he tapped a Guimond rebound home from the edge of the crease. It was his second goal of the season.
Perron set up Caron’s team-leading fifth goal with a power move to the net down the left side.
He was able to get off a one-handed shot and Caron shoveled home the rebound after Surran made the initial save.
McKay got one back with a screened wrist shot from the point off a Tucker Leland faceoff win for his fourth goal of the season. Moscone restored the four-goal cushion off a terrific play by Ty Walker, who put on a burst of speed to get around a Bronco defenseman and fed it across to Moscone, who directed it into the empty net.
“It was a beautiful pass from Ty. I was just in the right place at the right time,” Moscone said.
“That was a backbreaker,” said Hampden Academy coach Zach Wilson. “We had a bad second period and couldn’t recuperate.”
Matt Shayne gave the Broncos some life with a wrist shot from the slot 21 seconds into the third period for his fourth of the year and Lucas Dunn made things interesting by nudging the puck over the goal line with 9:02 remaining. It was his team-leading seventh goal.
But Perron iced it with his third of the campaign.
Guimond and Perron each had two assists to go with their goals and Moscone had an assist to go with his two goals.
Guimond’s goal in the first period was set up by Moscone and Walker.
Moscone maneuvered cleverly past a Bronco defenseman at the defensive blue line creating a two-on-one with Walker.
Moscone broke down the left wing and fed the puck across to Walker, whose point-blank one-timer was stopped by the well-positioned Surran.
The rebound spilled into the middle of the slot and Guimond flipped it home.
The first period was played largely in the Hampden end as the Rams kept constant pressure on the forecheck.
But Surran was equal to the task.
He held his ground to make a save off Moscone, who cut right to left across the low slot and, moments later, Surran robbed Caron of a goal after he had a neat deflection off a Jake Biberstein point shot.
The quick 5-foot-3 McCue preserved the lead by making back-to-back saves off Keith Brooks and Lucas Dunn with just more than three minutes left in the initial period.
Wilson said despite the loss, it was a great night.
“Look at the turnout. A lot of people were touched by it inside the rink and out. Our kids probably don’t realize it right now because losing hurts but when they look back in five or 10 years, they will say ‘Wow, it was special to be a part of that,’” Wilson said.