The Rundown - Week 2

One week was already in the books for Canada West women's hockey, and Week Two would see the ninth and final team take the ice while we got a number of rivalries re-established among teams in the cities and provinces. The Saskatchewan Huskies would watch from home this week as they had the bye, but the battle of BC, the battle of Calgary, the battle of Edmonton, and a prairie rivalry were all served up for our entertainment this week. Let's dig into those puck-based battles and other news on Week Two's edition of The Rundown!

FRIDAY: We'll start in Calgary for two reasons - the second of which will become much more evident in a second. There's zero love lost between the Calgary Dinos and Mount Royal Cougars as they begin accumulating points for the Crowchild Classic, so this matchup might be better served by asking who will survive as opposed to who will win. Both teams entered play with similar 1-1-0-0 records, so there were bragging rights and points to earn in this first meeting!

Dinos goals: Solana Cooper (1), Kyla Mitenko (1), Hannah Reagh (1)
Dinos assists: Bree Kennedy (1), Brooklyn Fry (1), Jada Johns (1), Brooklyn Fry (2)
Dinos netminder: Amelia Awad (32/33)

Cougars goals: Jerzey Watteyne (2)
Cougars assists: Jordyn Hutt (1), Allee Gerrard (1)
Cougars netminder: Katherine Holan (20/23)

Result: 3-1 victory for Calgary over Mount Royal.

SATURDAY: The series shifted back to Father David Bauer Arena as the Dinos looked for the sweep over their rivals, and the Dinos continued their strong showing this season with highlight reels so they'll get the "Headline Sports" treatment! Let's get into this!


Cougars goals: Jerzey Watteyne (3), Sydney Benko (1)
Cougars assists: Jori Hansen-Young (1), Allee Gerrard (2), Kiana McNinch (1)
Cougars netminder: Scout Anderson (21/22)

Dinos goals: Makenna Schafer (1)
Dinos assists: Bree Kennedy (2)
Dinos netminder: Amelia Awad (29/30)

Result: 2-1 victory for Mount Royal over Calgary.

FRIDAY: We'll stay in Alberta where both the Alberta Pandas and MacEwan Griffins came into the weekend seeking their first wins. MacEwan was looking to earn their first points while Alberta was trying to add to their two extra-time losses as they looked to chase down the BC-based teams. For two teams that finished at polar opposite positions last season, this rivalry is starting to heat up!

Pandas goals: Kallie Clouston (1), Emma Power (1), Jadynn Morden (2), Kallie Clouston (2)
Pandas assists: Holly Magnus (2), Hayleigh Craig (3), Abby Soyko (1), Natalie Kieser (1), Jadynn Morden (1), Hayleigh Craig (4)
Pandas netminder: Grace Glover (28/28)

Griffins goals: none
Griffins assists: none
Griffins netminder: Taya Currie (28/32)

Result: 4-0 victory for Alberta over MacEwan.

SATURDAY: I feel bad for the MacEwan Griffins in that they started their season against the Canada West finalists over two weeks, but that's how the calendar lined up for them. Of course, not scoring in two of three games this season doesn't help MacEwan's cause, and Alberta is still one of the better defensive teams in the conference. Could the Griffins shock the Pandas at Clare Drake Arena?

Griffins goals: Kori Paterson (1), Sasha Malenfant (1)
Griffins assists: Megan Dolynchuk (1), Joie Simon (2)
Griffins netminder: Lindsey Johnson (27/30)

Pandas goals: Abby Soyko (1), Abby Soyko (2), Sara Kazeil (1)
Pandas assists: Holly Magnus (3), Emma Power (1), Emma Power (2), Brayden Stewart (1)
Pandas netminder: Misty Rey (14/16)

Result: 3-2 victory for Alberta over MacEwan.

FRIDAY: We'll stick with the rivalries who are less than an hour apart as the UBC Thunderbirds headed south to Langley, BC to meet the Trinity Western Spartans. Both teams came into this series at the top of their division - a place familiar to UBC, but new to Trinity Western. After wins over Alberta the week before, the Spartans looked to knock off the other finalist this week. UBC wanted to put some space between themselves and the Spartans, so both teams took the ice with purpose this weekend as this rivalry added another chapter!

Thunderbirds goals: Jaylyn Morris (1), Grace Elliott (3), Karine Sandilands (1)
Thunderbirds assists: Annalise Wong (2), Annalise Wong (3), Olivia Buckley (1)
Thunderbirds netminder: Mya Lucifora (20/21)

Spartans goals: Kara Yackel (1)
Spartans assists: Sadie Isfeld (1)
Spartans netminders: Kate Fawcett (10/12) in 26:16 and Olivia Davidson (15/16) in 32:15

Result: 3-1 victory for UBC over Trinity Western.

SATURDAY: The Thunderbirds returned home having shown the Spartans that they still were the team to beat in BC, but the Spartans showed they were closer to closing the gap than they ever had been before. Two points now separated the teams, and the Spartans were looking to even things up with a win on UBC ice to even up the series.

Spartans goals: Presleigh Giesbrecht (2), Kara Yackel (2)
Spartans assists: Kasey Ditner (2), Kyra McDonald (1), Ella Boon (2)
Spartans netminders: Kate Fawcett (35/38)

Thunderbirds goals: Jaylyn Morris (2), Vanessa Schaefer (2), Jaylyn Morris (3)
Thunderbirds assists: Madisyn Wiebe (1), Mya Healey (2), Hanna Perrier (1), Annalise Wong (4), Olivia Buckley (2)
Thunderbirds netminder: Elise Hugens (18/20)

Result: 3-2 victory for UBC over Trinity Western.

FRIDAY: The one series that didn't feature a venue change this weekend took place in Winnipeg as the Manitoba Bisons opened their season by hosting the Regina Cougars for a pair of games. These two teams are sporting new looks this season, and both want to leave a lasting impression on Canada West with their play. Regina had a new coach last season, Manitoba's got a new coach this season, but wins still matter as the Cougars and Bisons meet for the first time!

Cougars goals: Makena Kushniruk (1), Shaylee Scraba (1), Tessa Stewart (2)
Cougars assists: Pippy Pritchard (1), Callie Hilhorst (2)
Cougars shootout scorers: Cassidy Peters
Cougars netminder: Amy Swayze (22/25) in 65:00 plus 7/9 in the shootout

Bisons goals: Addison Vines (1), Dana Goertzen (1), Kelsey Huibers (1)
Bisons assists: Sara Harbus (1), Brenna Nicol (1), Louise Fergusson (1), Claire Moorman (1)
Bisons shootout scorers: Kelsey Huibers, Alyssa Rasmuson
Bisons netminder: Emily Shippam (18/21) in 65:00 plus 8/9 in the shootout

Result: 4-3 shootout victory for Manitoba over Regina.

SATURDAY: After giving fans a full game plus a skills competition the night before, Regina and Manitoba were back at it on Saturday. Manitoba was looking for a four-point weekend with a second win while Regina was looking to even things up before heading home. These two look like they'll battle for the division lead all season once again, so Saturday's contest looked like another good one!

Cougars goals: Tessa Stewart (3), Pippy Pritchard (2)
Cougars assists: Jordyn Blais (1), Rayna Hennie (1), Jordyn Blais (2)
Cougars shootout scorers: Makena Kushniruk
Cougars netminder: Natalie Williamson (39/41) in 65:00 plus 3/3 in the shootout

Bisons goals: Aimee Patrick (1), Hannah Bailey (1)
Bisons assists: Hannah Bailey (1), Norah Collins (1), Alyssa Rasmuson (1), Aimee Patrick (1)
Bisons shootout scorers: none
Bisons netminder: Cypress Classen (18/21) in 63:50 plus 1/2 in the shootout

Result: 3-2 shootout victory for Regina over Manitoba.

Don't even ask about divisions. I'm not interested in that setup. It's one conference, nine teams, and we'll see who is best in the west.

CANADA WEST WOMEN'S HOCKEY

School	Record	Points	GF	GA	Streak	Next
UBC	4-0-0-0	8	10	4	W4	vs ALB
Alberta	2-0-0-2	6	11	7	W2	@ UBC
Regina	1-1-1-1	5	8	6	W1	BYE
Calgary	2-2-0-0	4	5	6	L1	vs MAN
Mount Royal	2-2-0-0	4	6	6	W1	vs MAC
Trinity Western	0-2-2-0	4	8	10	L2	@ SAS
Manitoba	0-0-1-1	3	5	5	L1	@ CAL
Saskatchewan	1-1-0-0	2	2	3	W1	vs TWU
MacEwan	0-4-0-0	0	3	11	L4	@ MRU

Honour Roll

Each week on The Rundown, I highlight the best performances from the weekend's games. It won't always be the top scorer or the best goalie, but I'll have a reason for who gets picked each week. This week's Honour Roll candidate is a player whose play has been of the highest standard since she broke into the league, and her efforts now have her sitting five wins away from immortality. With her 60th Canada West victory this weekend over Trinity Western, it's easy to see why UBC goaltender Elise Hugens adds her name to the list!

Hugens improved to 2-0 this week with her win, and she has stopped 28 of 30 shots she's faced. Her consistency in the crease is a large reason why she now sits two wins back of Alberta goaltending legend Lindsay Post and four wins back of former Manitoba Bisons stopper Stacey Corville for most wins all-time. Since 2021-22 when she broke into the league, Elise hasn't won less than 11 games in any season, and is currently a career 60-7-6 in Canada West play!

Assuming she plays and wins five of the next eight games, it's very possible that Elise Hugens becomes the winningest goaltender in Canada West history at home against MacEwan on November 14 or 15. She could, in theory, do it as early as November 7 at home against Manitoba if she started and won the next five games for UBC.

However, as it stands, her 60 wins in Canada West play eclipse the second-best UBC record of 43 wins set by Tory Micklash, and her shutout against MacEwan last week has her tied with former Pandas netminder Halle Oswald for second-best at 22 clean sheets, nine back of Lindsey Post for most shutouts in a career. She's officially one of the best all-time and she has 24 games to go in her career to add to her totals, but it's not hard to see how Elise Hugens made the list!

Fun With Stats - Part 1

If you were checking the official scoring of one game in particular on Friday night, you would have likely seen this score on the Canada West "Daily Scores" page which seems like a football score.

Yes, you're reading that correctly - it was showing as 11-9 and heading into overtime. I was hoping that the Bisons' gameday crew would get that corrected before overtime started, but you'll see that it got worse before getting better. More to come below!

New Looks - Part Four

Last week, we got to see the new white jersey for the Regina Cougars, the potential brown jersey for the Manitoba Bisons, and no new jersey for the MacEwan Griffins despite them having a new logo. This week, Manitoba played their first games at home, and they debuted their new home jerseys which are not white at all. You can really see the difference between the new Bisons yellow on Emily Shippam's jersey compared to the old Bisons gold on her pads. In any case, not seeing that blue stripe actually makes these jerseys look pretty good, so, again, lose the blue stripes. Having the blue on the logo doesn't really stand out on the jersey as much as those stripes do, but it seems we're stuck with blue stripes.

Fun With Stats - Part 2

Well, Manitoba did win the shootout... despite it being a 12-9 final.

We're still not done with the scorers tinkering with stats, so we'll keep going. Are we sure this isn't a football score from the stadium?

Shorty Season

Special teams always take a little work to get things clicking, and this season is no different. Five of nine teams already have double-digit totals for power-plays, and none scored more than four goals with Trinity Western's 4-for-24 leading the way in most PPGs so far. Where things are off the scales is in the shorthanded goal totals as we've already seen four scored over the first two weeks of the season! Power-play goals will come, but teams need to play defence too!

Last season, 21 shorthanded goals were scored, and UBC led the way with five tallies while down a player. They already have one this season along with Trinity Western, Alberta, and Regina having the others, and one has to wonder if there will be a bigger push for more offence when the opportunity arises for teams. Of course, this could just be an early-season trend where the power-play units need to get their acts together, but I'll have to keep an eye on how this goes.

Fun With Stats - Part 3

Um... how did Regina score another goal after the game ended?

If you're wondering how the score even got that high, it appears that someone was clicking "goals" instead of "shots". There were a pile of "goals" scored in the final minutes that didn't actually happen. Oops!

Gold Medal TV Viewing

If you missed CBC's announcement on Thursday, it was a big one for U SPORTS men's and women's hockey. As per the CBC's release, both gold medal games from the two national championship tournaments will be broadcast live on CBC television across the country on Sunday, March 22! I could sit here and say "do all the games," but I'll be honest: this is HUGE for Canadina university hockey!

For years, I have been banging the drum loudly for the network partners of U SPORTS to find space on their network stations to air these games. The hockey is fantastic, and these teams and players deserve the same visibility as junior hockey and minor-pro hockey. By having CBC commit to showing the two gold medal games, they're essentially agreeing that there's value in those specific games while giving the tournaments an opportunity to potentially grow their viewership ratings. That's a massive win for U SPORTS, and I hope CBC finds value in airing these games through commercial ad sales.

All of the other games during the tournament will still be found on the CBC Gem, cbcsports.ca, CBC Sports YouTube, and ICI Tou.tv digital streaming services with only the women's consolation semifinal games on Saturday being shown in a lesser capacity on CBC Sports YouTube and iSi Live/USPORTS.ca streaming services.

Frankly, this is an incredible move by CBC and CBC Sports, and I commend them for opening up some time to show the best teams in Canadian university hockey compete for their respective gold medals and championship trophies. I'm not advocating for me to be included in any way, but if there's a panel, CBC, I'm available that weekend.

Fun With Stats - Part 4

By Saturday morning, it appears that someone just said "screw it" and went ahead and recreated the game with the proper score and stats.

Better late than never, right? Just for the record, all of the Canada West stats for goals, assists, and goalie stats are correctly recorded.

Highlights For Others?

You saw what I did with Calgary's highlight package above, and it can be done for your team if you have someone from your athletics department reach out to me. Parents, fans, players, coaches, and anyone else who enjoy watching highlights? You should be making those arrangements now. The Dinos are going to get this treatment all season long because they do it willfully, so expect more highlights next week when the Bisons roll into town to play the Dinos!

The Last Word

It should be noted that whatever MacEwan is doing when it comes to their offence and defence, they've started the season with virtually the exact same statistics as last season. In the first two weeks of the 2024-25 season, the Griffins scored three goals-for and had ten goals scored against them which isn't far off from their three goals-for and eleven goals-against this season. The difference? MacEwan was 1-2-0-1 at this point last season with a shootout win and a shootout loss.

Putting MacEwan in a division with UBC, Alberta, and Trinity Western is a sadistic move by Canada West simply because they're not going to score enough this season to make the playoffs. They've never scored more than 40 goals in any season to this point, and a 28-game schedule means that's less than 2.00 goals per game in their history. Last season, only one team made the playoffs scoring less than 2.00 goals per game, and that was Regina who had 45 in 28 games.

Let me be clear: I like MacEwan's roster, and I think they have decent scoring talent on that roster. For whatever reason, though, they don't generate much offence - they currently average less than 20 shots per game - and they shoot below 5% for a shooting percentage. If you're doing the math, that's about one goal per game, so MacEwan's goaltending and defence better be prepared to pitch a lot of shutouts this season which simply is an impossible ask at this point.

I know I sound like a broken record every season when it comes to MacEwan's offensive output, but something has to change if this team is ever going to take steps forward. Honestly, I'd really like to see them take a couple of big leaps forward to have nine competitive teams in Canada West where anyone can beat anyone else.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!