Bishop Guertin's Luca Ferrari (5) is ahead of the wake of bodies behind him that includes teammate Will McBournie (19), plus Rice Memorial's Bayler Lomos (20) and Mason Bilodeau (22) during Saturday's inter-state clash at Skate 3 in Tyngsborough, Mass. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

TYNGSBOROUGH, Mass. – This was the kind of game Bishop Guertin High School boys hockey coach Gary Bishop wanted – a contest against a tough out-of-state opponent his team usually never sees.

The only problem was, unlike the holiday tourney play the Cards were used to for those types of matchups in the past, the Cards didn’t get the win and it counted in the standings, as they fell 4-1 to Rice Memorial of South Burlington, Vt. at Skate 3.

“That’s what we did here,” Cards coach Gary Bishop said of getting a unique matchup. “They’re a pretty good team, and their goaltender stood on his head in the first period. I’m not disappointed in the way we played.”

The Cards, you see, for years had played in Rhode Island in the Mount St.Charles holiday tournament, but that is now a prep school event. This year they played in the round-robin Blue Devil Classic in Salem, which was fine except it was against teams it would see in the regular season anyway.

So they used the regular season schedule to get some of that unknown factor in. BG goes back to see Salem this week in their first regular season game against the New Hampshire Division I game. They opened up vs. Division II champion St.Thomas, then Billerica (Mass.) Memorial, and then Rice Memorial, the latter improving to 6-0.

The Knights were paced by Ryder Donati’s two goals and an assist. After a scoreless first period, Tucker Martin opened the scoring at 4:09 of the second down low vs. BG netminder Brody Fallon (20 stops), but then Vincent Lonzetto and Donati added power play goals 1:33 apart at 11:34 and 13:07 to put BG in a 3-0 hole.

Guertin put way more pressure with traffic on Knights goalie Connor Williams (26 stops) in the third period but could only get a goal by Jordan O’Hearn, assisted by Anthony Dobrutchi just inside of four minutes left. Too little, too late, and Donati added an empty netter to account for the final.

“We capitalized on our power play,” Rice Memorial coach Justin Martin said. “I thought our goaltender played excellent in the second period, one of them was a save and then we went down the other way and scored. Those are big momentum changers in games, especially tight games like that.”

“I thought we played well in the first period, we just couldn’t get a goal,” Bishop said. “Then we gave up the two power play goals, the baloon burst, and we didn’t get enough goals in the end.”

Speaking of the end, things got a little feisty after the final buzzer sounded, with officials having to break up a group skirmish that had the potential to get out of hand. But order was restored, teams shook hands, there were only two roughing penalties assessed (one for each eam)with no disqualifications. Those would have meant suspensions for any BG player by NHIAA rule

“I’m disappointed with the stupid stuff at the end,” Bishop said. “That’s a two way street.That’s kids being kids.”

“You never want games to end that way,” Martin said. “It was a good hockey game up until the last five minutes, it got a little rough. Hey, that’s hockey, high school kids … They (Guertin) played hard, they’re a physical team, that’s what we expected. They played good.”

Bishop Guertin’s Aidan Fallon (10) goes after the puck after Rice Memorial’s Tyler Ritchie is spilled during Saturday’s inter-state game at Skate 3 in Tyngsborough, Mass. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

Bishop now looks back and ahead. He did feel he got some valuable minutes for his team in the Salem tourney vs. the Devils, Windham and Londonderry.

“We played a lot of kids, the fourth line a little bit, lot of defensemen, both goalies,” Bishop said.

But now, they take all of that and head on the road – for almost a month. Yes, you read right. The Cards don’t return to Skate 3 until Jan. 31 vs. Bow. That’s after road games at Salem, Hanover, Concord, Keene and Manchester.Yikes. How will they handle that?

“Good question,” Bishop said. “We better be ready to play on the road.”