The Rundown - What If...?

If you're a regular reader of The Rundown, you know that I haven't forgotten about the Lethbridge Pronghorns. I still have strong feelings about how that program was ended by the people who claim to care about students, but I'm not here to re-open those wounds. What is apparent is that Lethbridge had a pile of talent on their roster and coming into the program based on how former players have played this season, so one has to wonder how Canada West would have looked if the Pronghorns had been part of the conference this season. That's exactly the purpose of this article as The Rundown asks "What if... the Pronghorns still existed?"

Before we get into this scenario, the entire premise of this idea is based on Marvel Studios' What If...? television series where they propose alternate realities in the Marvel Universe. It's a bit of a fun and weird adventure in the episodes, but they asked the questions. Just as they did, I will as well except that I'm asking it about the Pronghorns in the Canada West universe. In order to make this work, I'm going to assume that any team on a bye week was eligible to play Lethbridge so that the schedule remains the same for all teams. That's the easy part of this academic exercise.

With that knowledge in place, let's have some fun and solve the riddle of "What if... the Pronghorns still existed in 2021-22?"

Perhaps the biggest shake-up in the U SPORTS world would be the players who transferred to other schools needing to find themselves back in Lethbridge colours. There are a number of women who stuck around Lethbridge and are playing with the AJFHL, but here's the list of players who ventured elsewhere to continue their hockey careers.

• Alli Borrow - Calgary Dinos
• Meg Dyer - Saskatchewan Huskies
• Mallory Dyer - Saskatchewan Huskies
• Kenzie Lausberg - Saskatchewan Huskies
• Mila Verbicky - MacEwan Griffins
• Sage Sansregret - MacEwan Griffins
• Abby Soyko - Alberta Pandas
• Alli Soyko - Red Deer Queens (ACHA)
• Chloe Marshall - Nipissing Lakers (OUA)
• Emma Neff - Nipissing Lakers (OUA)
• Maddy McCleary - Saint Mary's Huskies (AUS)
• Ashlee Hodge-Hirschfield - Mount Allison Mounties (AUS)
• Tallon Stephenson - Mount Allison Mounties (AUS)
• Madeleine Noonan - Sodertalje SK (Sweden's DamEttan)
• Stephanie Gross - Lethbridge Pronghorns swim team

With Calgary losing one of their top scorers in Alli Borrow, the Dinos are going to get worse. The Huskies see two players who are playing regular minutes for them exit the program, and the MacEwan Griffins are in the same boat. Nipissing loses a very good defender and their starting netminder. Alli Soyko is rounding into form with Red Deer in her rookie season while Maddy Noonan is having another amazing season in Sweden. Maddy McCleary leads Saint Mary's in plus/minus so they'll take a hit while Mount Allison has struggled, but both Stephenson and Hodge-Hirschfield have logged significant minutes. Stephanie Gross will rejoin the squad rather than swim for Lethbridge, Abby Soyko will see ice time with the Pronghorns as opposed to not playing for the Pandas, and Kenzie Lausberg would have a regular shift as opposed to just practicing with the Huskies.

Of course, there were some players whose eligibility was up, so Lethbridge would enter the season without the likes of Alicia Anderson, Katelyn Breitkreuz, Kirana Stocker, Mattie Apperson, Tricia Van Vaerenbergh, and Denzelle Hettle. All of those players had fulfilled their five years of eligibility, so there were open roster spots that would have been filled by the recruits Doug Paisley had signed.

The team is back and ready to roll based mostly on this roster, but we need to include a handful of other players that had signed with the team as well. We can't forget goaltender Molly Mitchell, forward Jade Sandberg, and defender Teah Workman who had reportedly agreed to join the Pronghorns. Adding them to the roster makes Lethbridge better, so their inclusion needed to be mentioned.

With the Pronghorns ready to ice a team, let's run through the first half of the schedule!

With Saskatchewan having the bye in the opening week of the season, Lethbridge would have started the season on the road in Saskatoon. As we know, the Huskies struggled to score in the first half of the season, so running into a very capable goalie like Chloe Marshall early in the season wouldn't help the Huskies.

Lethbridge, meanwhile, always seems to open the season like they're on fire, so I would expect them to do the same in this campaign. They have veteran scoring and leadership in Alli Borrow, Kyra Greig, and Mikaela Reay while their blue line is anchored by Eryn Johansen and Meg Dyer, so it's not unreasonable to suggest that the Pronghorns may have split the opening weekend with the Huskies. I'm following that idea as the Pronghorns leave Saskatoon with a 1-1-0 record.

With teams looking to travel less in Canada West, Lethbridge unfortunately has to make the trip to Edmonton rather than playing the home-and-home that they'd plan with the Pandas annually. Going to Clare Drake Arena is never fun for opposing teams, and Lethbridge's record at the Pandas' rink was never good. I'd love to say that the Pronghorns shocked Canada West, but I can't.

Alberta does earn the four points on this weekend, but the Pronghorns lose one of the games in overtime. That point helps them in the standings as they fall to 1-2-1 on the season, but it keeps them moving in the right direction in terms of finding points.

The "road warriors" finish their six-game road trip to open the season in Langley, BC where they meet the Trinity Western Spartans for the first time. Trinity Western's 0-4-0 start to the season doesn't get any easier as the Pronghorns play sound hockey in limiting chances against while capitalizing on a few opportunities of their own.

I'll add some fun to this one by saying that Stephanie Gross earns her first Canada West win on this weekend as well as she starts one of the two games for the Pronghorns. The two wins come at an important time as the Pronghorns return home starting next week for seven of the next eight games with a 3-2-1 record on the season!

The home-opening weekend for the Pronghorns as the UBC Thunderbirds roll into town for the two-game set. UBC has been thundering over anyone who gives them an inch, and Lethbridge simply isn't built to play that physical brand of hockey that UBC likes to play. The first game is closer than the second game, but the Thunderbirds leave the southern Alberta city with all four points in their pockets.

For a younger team like the Pronghorns, this setback shouldn't deflate them. They have a great shot at adding some points with next week's games at Nicholas Sheran Arena, but leave Week Four with a 3-4-1 record as they find themselves behind several teams.

Just as Lethbridge made the trip to Edmonton, the other Edmonton-based team heads south as the MacEwan Griffins visit Lethbridge for their first regular season games against the Pronghorns. The Griffins are an interesting case for the Pronghorns as the teams have similar roster makeups, but the difference is the experience the Lethbridge possesses in playing in Canada West. Both of these games will be close in score, but I suspect the Pronghorns will send the Griffins home with, at maximum, one point.

The two wins benefit the Pronghorns greatly as they're looking to remain ahead of MacEwan with respect to earning a playoff berth, so let's call this a weekend sweep for Lethbridge thanks to some timely goal-scoring and solid netminding to push them to 5-4-1 on the season with four games remaining in the first half of the season.

Like most teams who have visited the Cougars' den this season, they came out worse for wear. The Mount Royal Cougars are a good team and they would have shown it against Lethbridge in this series. Lethbridge likely wouldn't have been blown out, but the Cougars would have methodically picked them apart. As much as we can hope for an upset here, the Cougars have too much talent to lose to the Pronghorns this season.

The losses are a bit of a setback with one week to play in the opening half of the season, but the 5-6-1 record amassed by the Pronghorns isn't terrible when you consider that they've played Mount Royal, UBC, and Alberta in their first half. There's still work to do, though, so let's see how the last week of 2021 plays out for Lethbridge.

The last games in the first half for Lethbridge are played at home against the Calgary Dinos, and both teams come in looking for wins to help them climb the standings. Calgary always has a knack for pulling off a big win when they need it most, and they get one in Lethbridge after dropping the Friday night game against the Pronghorns. While the Pronghorns looked solid all weekend against a team they had to beat, they simply couldn't score enough on Calgary on Saturday.

The split pushes Lethbridge's first-half record to 6-7-1 as they enter the December break which is close to where they stood in 2019-20 as they went into December with a 6-7-1-2 record on the three-point system. The good news is that they've positioned themselves well for the second half and a playoff push, but there may be a little disappointment in dropping a few games they feel they could have won. For a young team that's growing together, I'd say Lethbridge is doing well in this "What If..." scenario.

"WHAT IF" CANADA WEST SCENARIO

School	Record	Points	Next	vs LET in 2nd Half?
Mount Royal	10-1-1-2	24	JANUARY	2 games
UBC	11-3-0-0	22	JANUARY	no
Manitoba	8-4-2-0	20	JANUARY	2 games
Alberta	5-4-4-1	19	JANUARY	no
Saskatchewan	7-5-0-2	16	JANUARY	no
Lethbridge	6-7-0-1	13	JANUARY	n/a
Regina	5-7-0-2	12	JANUARY	2 games
MacEwan	5-9-0-0	10	JANUARY	no
Calgary	5-9-0-0	10	JANUARY	2 games
Trinity Western	1-12-1-0	4	JANUARY	no

Disclaimer

Let me be very clear in stating that the above results and standings are nothing more than pure speculation based on historical stats, knowledge of current teams, and some crystal-ball gazing. There is no truth to any of the results or the standings, so don't get bent out of shape over the speculation. This was for fun in terms of projecting a ten-team Canada West conference this season, but I truly think that Lethbridge would have been close to, if not holding, the final playoff spot once the first half of the season wrapped up. I may be way off on this, but it seems to follow the trends we've seen from Lethbridge over the last few years of play.

Just rememeber that there's a money-back guarantee if you're unhappy with the "What If...?" scenario above. Otherwise, leave your predictions in the comments below and we'll have some chatter about how wrong I am!

Some Sad News

It broke my heart today in reading that former UBC Thunderbirds forward Amanda Asay had passed away at the age of 33 from a skiing accident in Nelson, British Columbia. Asay spent the first three years of her university hockey career at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island where she obtained her Bachelor's Degree in Science before transferring home to UBC where she played her final two seasons of eligibility with the Thunderbirds as she earned her Master's Degree in Science and her PhD in Forestry. Not only was she good on the ice and in the classroom, but she also caught the eye of Baseball Canada as Women's National Team evaluators awarded her a spot on Team Canada when she was just 17 years-old, leading to a long career competing internationally.

Asay was the longest serving member of the Women's National Team program afetr getting her opportunity in 2005, and she was a teammate of current Alberta Panda Madison Willan and current Mount Royal Cougar Kaitlyn Ross on Team Canada. She was a two-time Women's National Team Most Valuable Player, a five-time five WBSC Women's Baseball World Cup medallist, and a 2015 Pan Am Games silver medallist. Her loss will be felt by the baseball and hockey communities, and my heart goes out to her friends, family, and teammates with this devastating news.

Rest in peace, Amanda. You made everyone around you better like true teammates do, and you will be missed by all who were touched by your life.

The Last Word

Ending on a sad note is always hard, but things get back to normal next week as the second half of the season resumes. If you're an administrator or a sports information person at one of the Canada West universities, get your highlight-reel creation skills ready because you've had half a season where you did nothing to help the game. This is your moment to shine in bringing back the highlights, so let's get rolling.

Eight games remain on the schedule for nine teams with six playoff spots up for grabs. Mathematics will come into play for a few teams when it comes magic numbers and locking up playoff spots, but this should be an exciting end to the 2021-22 Canada West women's hcokey season! See you at the rink!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!