Sunday, May 8, 2005 | By Philip Croucher, Halifax Daily News

Halifax Mooseheads general manager Marcel Patenaude was pretty hot under the collar following Friday night's Game 2 setback to the Rimouski Oceanic.

Patenaude was angry about the officiating in the series, especially in regard to Game 2 where Rimouski had nine power plays to Halifax's six.

Overall, Rimouski has enjoyed 16 power plays in the final. Halifax has had 11.

"People are judging me about some of my comments on refereeing, but if people watched it on TV or through the webcast or listened to it on the radio, there are some things that are obvious," Patenaude said. "I'll let people do their own judgement, but definitely, it was for me, something inappropriate for a final in this league."

Oceanic coach and general manager Doris Labonte disagreed with Patenaude's claim, stating it was simply a case of Halifax deserving more penalties.

"How can they be upset?" Labonte asked. "We had a couple of more power plays (in Game 2), but they played tough tonight. They broke at least four sticks in the first 10 minutes of the game on slashes to us.

"I'm not saying dirty," he added. "It's normal. It's playoffs and they want to win. They didn't want to go back to Halifax down 0-2, so they put everything into that game ... but they deserved what they got penalty-wise, and in my opinion they could have had more."

Patenaude was especially upset with a slashing call to Oceanic forward Danny Stewart with 6:16 left in the third period.

Stewart jabbed the butt-end of his stick to the stomach of Mooseheads defenceman Alexandre Picard, and received a two-minute minor.

Patenaude believed the penalty should have been a five-minute major, and the team has decided to send the tape to league disciplinarian Maurice Filion for further review.

"It was definitely spearing," Patenaude said.

The Mooseheads arrived back in Halifax yesterday afternoon. They took a chartered flight back from Rimouski.

The team is practising today at the Halifax Forum at 11 a.m.