The Carleton Ravens enter Thursday night having won three straight Colonel By Classics, but the Gee-Gees will hope their 3-0 record this season is the difference when the two teams meet at TD Place. Carleton enters the game having lost a pair of close games last weekend to top-ranked teams in UQTR and McGill, now the nationally ranked Gee-Gees look to bring home the flag in the final chapter of the 2023-24 Rivalry Series.
Last season's Colonel By Classic was a wild 8-7 overtime thriller that no doubt took a few hairs of the heads of both head coaches. With Carleton taking a 3-2 lead in the first, things never settled between the two teams, entering the third tied at four, each team scored three times before Majid Kaddoura scored with 47 seconds remaining in overtime to clinch the victory.
The game is steeped in classic moments, in 2018-19 Jacob Smith scored with 1:12 to play in regulation to force overtime before burying the game-winner in the shootout. The only moment in the night more epic than Smith's last-minute heroics was Francois Brassard riding his stick to centre ice after stopping Ivan Mongo in the shootout.
Carleton followed up the shootout victory in 2018 with an epic comeback in 2019. Trailing 2-0 after two, Carleton scored four unanswered goals in the third period to take the last Classic before the COVID-19 Pandemic stopped the series for two seasons.
