The X-Men hockey team opened up the AUS regular season with a pair of losses against New Brunswick opponents. Friday night they fell 5-2 to the CIS ranked No. 2 UNB Varsity Reds, then were defeated Saturday evening 4-3 by the Universite de Moncton Aigles Bleus.

In Friday's game, the defending CIS champion Varsity Reds held leads of 2-1 and 3-2 after the first and second periods as Taylor MacDougall scored two goals.

V-Reds Marc-Antoine Desnoyers opened the scoring in the game at 14:10 of the first period while on the power play.

X-Men freshman forward Blake Gal tied it less than two minutes later, from Rob Slaney and Bronson Maschmeyer, but MacDougall gave back the one goal advantage for the Varsity Reds, scoring his first goal with 23 seconds left in the opening frame.
 
Subway player of the game Nick MacNeil tallied for UNB 6:23 into the second period and Maschmeyer replied for the X-Men while on the power play at 8:24. Slaney and Jason Bast picked up the assists.

MacDougall and Thomas Nesbitt rounded out the Varsity Reds scoring in the third period.

Charles Lavigne earned the win in nets for the Varsity Reds with 16 saves, while Drew

Owsley turned aside 23 shots in the losing effort for the X-Men.

UNB outshot StFX 28-18.

In Saturday's game played in Moncton, the Aigles Bleus got out to a 2-0 lead after 20 minutes of play thanks to power play markers by Alex Saulnier (2:33) and Pierre Durepos (16:00).

They increased their lead to 3-0 as Alex Emond scored 1:45 into the second period.

Michael Kirkpatrick got the X-Men on the board at 4:40, with assists coming from Nathan Chiarlitti and Rob Slaney.

The two teams then exchanged goals from Remi Blanchard (5:27) and Brad Cuzner (16:53) before the second period was over to give the Aigles Bleus a 4-2 advantage after two.

Veteran forward Brennen Wray assisted on the Cuzner goal.

The X-Men were able to pull within a goal as Zack MacQueen scored from R.D. Chisholm at the 11:22 mark of the third period. They were unable to find the equalizer.

Adrien Lemay picked up the win in the Aigles Bleus net with 31 saves, while Owsley suffered his second loss of the weekend with 28 saves. Shots were fairly close at 34-32 in favor of Moncton.

The X-Men will face the same two opponents on October 25 and 26 at home at the StFX Keating Centre. Puck drops at 7:00 pm Friday against the Aigles Bleus (2-0), followed by a Saturday game against the Varsity Reds (2-0), also at 7pm.