After taking Saturday off to work on a project and relax on this holiday weekend, I found myself watching more games without feeling compelled to write anything. I fell into watching the NCAA Men's Regional Hockey Tournaments this weekend as I was curious in seeing who would emerge as the Frozen Four contenders in St. Paul, Minnesota in two weeks, and watching these teams put everything on the line in a win-or-go-home game makes for exciting hockey. Today, we were treated to a beauty, though, as the third-ranked Quinnipiac Bobcats met the first-ranked Boston College Eagles in Providence, Rhode Island with a berth in the Frozen Four on the line.
As you can tell by the lede photo, one team was more successful than the other, but this game was an absolute beauty as Boston College, trailing 4-3 late in the game, tied the contest on a Aram Minnetian goal with less than five minutes to play. Neither side could find a fifth goal in regulation time, so we were off to overtime to decide who would be heading to St. Paul.
We wouldn't have to wait long to see one team punch their tickets to Minnesota as it took just 3:06 for the game-winner to be scored.
You have to feel for Quinnipiac goaltender Vinny Duplessis as it appeared that he thought the deflected puck was underneath him only for it to pop out in front of him where that scrum ensued. Forward Cristophe Tellier looked like he was going to chip it to the boards, but he pushed it directly into the path of Boston College forward Jack Malone who buried the winner, sending Boston College to its 26th Frozen Four berth. With all the joy that comes for Boston, heartbreak will be felt in Hamden, Connecticut.
Unfortunately, one team had to lose today, and that's how this NCAA tournament works. Would I love to have seen a three- or five-game series between these two teams? Absolutely. Both are well-coached, they attack with speed, defend with vigor, and their goalies made big saves to keep their teams in the game when things could have gone sideways. However, one team has to go home, and Quinnipiac fell just short today. No one should hang their heads, though.
We were treated to a dandy hockey game today. For a guy who is way too old for Easter treats, I will not complain about the treat that the NCAA served up today. Happy Easter, folks.
This isn't going to be a long-winded entry as I'm not really not motivated to write any thought pieces on hockey today, but I did watch the trailer for the new animated comedy, If, that's scheduled for a May release in North America. Directed by John Krasinski, the movie is a live-action/animated feature that stars Ryan Reynolds and Cailey Fleming in live-action roles while Steve Carell Phoebe Waller-Bridge, and Louis Gossett Jr. all have voice roles as animated characters. It looks like it could be pretty good as the movie deals with a young girl who gains the ability to see everyone's imaginary friend, but it seems the movie set might have been way too much fun based on a running joke that John Krasinski brought back.
For those who may be wondering about the lede photo, that's a scene from the John Krasinski-directed 2016 movie, The Hollars, where both John Krasinski and Randall Park starred in the film. These two actors have a bit of history together thanks to The Office TV show where Jim (John Kasinski) and Pam (Jenna Fischer) prank Dwight (Rainn Wilson) by hiring Steve (Randall Park) to play the role of Jim. The episode aired on October 4, 2012, so let the hilarity ensue!
The elaborate pranks that the writers of The Office dreamed up were often larger than life, but this one was funny because of how over-the-top it was. Granted, I can't imagine anyone in real-life falling for a prank like this, but the comedy of this prank gets a solid pass here.
Back to the topic du jour, it seems the joke started in The Office is still being celebrated today as seen in the teaser for Paramount's If.
Honestly, this joke has to keep going at random points in the future now. While there are some who struggle to see the comedy in this bit, Krasinski and Park have done a great job in not overusing this bit, allowing it to re-enter the public realm in place one may not expect. As they say, timing is everything, and a bit done in 2012 certainly still has legs in 2024 with the release of If.
For those asking, watch for the Krasinski-directed If, released by Paramount Pictures, in theatres on May 17, 2024. If nothing else, If should be a fun movie for kids!
I had every intention of taking today off, and it almost seemed like I accomplished my goal of spending Good Friday working on another project. While I did get a pile of work done on said project, the ECHL's Norfolk Admirals brought me back to the keyboard this evening thanks to a player doing something I'll always highlight: goalies scoring goals. The Admirals also did something tonight they haven't done in a decade as well, so it was a big night in the Virginia city for their professional hockey team as the Winnipeg Jets' ECHL affiliate had a night!
The Atlanta Gladiators were visiting the Admirals tonight, and a win by the Admirals would send them to the Kelly Cup Playoffs for the first time since joining the ECHL in 2015-16. Clearly, they had motivation to pick up a victory, but Atlanta was in town to spoil the fun. With 5167 fans inside Scope Arena for a chance to see the Admirals book their ticket to the dance, the scene was set for what could be a big night for the Admirals!
Clearly, the title gives away the ending in this one, but Brady Fleurent and Stepan Timofeyev put Norfolk out in front by a pair of goals in the first period before Timofeyev made it 3-0 in the second period. Atlanta would get one back before Brandon Osmundson scored off an assist by former Calgary Dinos defenceman Dakota Krebs for his first professional point, but Atlanta would score again with 38 seconds to play to make it 4-2.
This game seemingly was over, but one player wasn't done scoring.
Winnipeg Jets goaltending prospect and current Norfolk Admirals netminder Oskari Salminen added his name to the ECHL record books when he fired the puck down the ice with 24 seconds remaining and hit the empty net. That would make Salminen the 16th goalie in ECHL history to have scored a goal and the first in just over a year with Ryan Fanti having scored the last one. The fun part? This is Salminen's second goal in his career as he recorded one in Finland with Savonlinnan Pallokerho, better known as SaPKo, in the Mestis league!
I went looking for the SaPKo goal, but my Finnish isn't quite up to "Google search" level so I didn't find much. There are highlights of Salminen with the club, but SaPKo actually went bankrupt in 2022, making any contact with the club impossible since they haven't existed for a couple of years now. I'll keep scouring the internet to see if I can find something, but this Metsis goal scored by Salminen may just remain Finnish hockey lore at this point.
In any case, Salminen's name is now part of the list of ECHL goalies with a goal as the 16th player on the list!
Oskari Salminen (NOR) vs Atlanta - March 29, 2024
Ryan Fanti (FWK) vs Rapid City - March 25, 2023
Francois Brassard (MAI) at Adirondack - December 18, 2022
CJ Motte (QCM) at Fort Wayne - December 9, 2017
Alex Nedeljkovic (FLA) at Atlanta - December 30, 2016
Brian Foster (CIN) vs Trenton - February 15, 2013
Timo Pielmeier (BAK) at Utah - December 19, 2009
Jonathan Quick (REA) at Pensacola - October 24, 2007
Trevor Koenig (ACB) at Wheeling - March 2, 2005
Brian Eklund (PEN) at Mississippi - December 5, 2003
Mike Smith (LEX) vs Dayton - October 26, 2002
Mark Bernard (TOL) vs Johnstown - March 27, 2001
Nick Vitucci (CHA) vs Louisville - March 6, 1996
Sean Gauthier (SCS) at Raleigh - December 19, 1995
Olie Sundstrom (ERI) vs Wheeling - December 15, 1995
Corwin Saurdiff (HRA) vs Charlotte - March 18, 1995
Based on that list, it appears that Oskari Salminen is also the first Finnish-born netminder to have scored in the ECHL, so there's another cool first for the 24 year-old as he writes his hockey story. Atlanta, as shown above, now joins Wheeling as the only ECHL clubs with two goalie goals surrendered in their histories.
Salminen improves to 7-2-1 with the Admirals after his 25-save night this evening while sporting a 2.99 GAA and a .893 save percentage. More importantly, Norfolk is now 38-21-6, and they earned the "x" beside their name as they clinched a playoff spot! They're still trying to hunt down the first-place Adirondack Thunder in the ECHL's North Division, but they sit four backs of the Thunder with seven games to play - one more against Atlanta tomorrow before three against the Reading Royals and three against the Newfoundland Growlers, assuming they're still playing, to close out the season.
In short, it was a big night in Norfolk with a goalie goal capping off a playoff-clinching win for the Admirals, sending them to the Kelly Cup Playoffs for the first time in franchise history, but the fun is far from over as the Admirals set their sights on the Thunder in order to improve their odds for a deep playoff run. Based on how he's playing, Oskari Salminen looks like he'll be a big part of that effort, and there may still be time to double his goal-scoring totals for this season before the playoffs start!
Congratulations to the Norfolk Admirals on clinching a playoff spot this season, and congratulations to Oskari Salminen for scoring his first professional goal in North America!
The Hockey Show, Canada's only campus-produced radio show that strictly talks hockey, is back on the air with all systems at optimum levels as our two normal hosts dig into hockey news. Jason's trip to Toronto to do some book signings for his fantastic tome, Bounty, will be discussed as it's always good to hear things going well for someone, so we'll get caught up on Jason's adventure to the Centre of the Universe. From there, our hosts will dig into the hockey matters this week, so get yourself settled in for some puck talk tonight on The Hockey Show at 5:30pm CT!
If today's episode feels like a lot of people are giving up and walking away, you may have caught the theme. Teebz and Jason will jump into discussing two ECHL teams that may fold prior to the season ended and how they got to that point, the Washington Capitals and their failed arena bid in Virginia, and Bob Murdoch's CTE diagnosis and Bill Daly's baffling statement last week. Some of the smaller stories will include ECHL teams loading up on U SPORTS players, the EIHL seeing its biggest increase in viewership, another Capitals player heading to Player Assistance, a quick note about a local coach going international, and anything else we can squeeze into the hour! We're going to move quickly on a very busy show tonight on The Hockey Show at 5:30pm CT on one of 101.5 FM, Channel 718 on MTS TV, or via UMFM.com!
If you live outside Winnipeg and want to listen, we have options! The new UMFM website's online streaming player is pretty awesome if you want to listen online. We also recommend Radio Garden if you need an easy-to-use online stream. If you're more of an app person, we recommend you use the TuneIn app found on the App Store or Google Play Store. If you use the TuneIn app, you won't be disappointed. It's a solid app.
If you have questions, you can email all show queries and comments to hockeyshow@umfm.com! Tweet me anytime with questions you may have by hitting me up at @TeebzHBIC on Twitter! I'm here to listen to you, so make your voice heard!
Tonight, Teebz and Jason chat about contracting teams, contracting players, arena deals, head trauma, liability vs. responsibility, more fans watching, and much more exclusively on 101.5 UMFM and on the UMFM.com web stream!
I can't say there are many similarities between the cities of Trois-Rivières, Quebec and St. John's, Newfoundland outside of both being next to bodies of water and both having ECHL teams. The first of those two similarities doesn't appear to be changing anytime soon as both the St. Lawrence River and the Atlantic Ocean seem to be quite watery. The second similarity, though, could make both of these cities have another fact: both may be former ECHL locations by next season based on the news today.
I'm not sure anyone was expecting this news, but, according to a report from Matthew Vachon and Paule Vermot-Desroches of Le Nouvelliste, both the Newfoundland Growlers and Trois-Rivières Lions may not finish this season and could fold before the season ends. For a league like the ECHL who was patting itself on the back a couple of months ago for announcing two new expansion franchises in Lake Tahoe, Nevada and Bloomington, Indiana, this news tempers any excitement one may have had for teams competing for playoff spots for what looked like a competitive Kelly Cup postseason.
As per Vachon's and Vermot-Desroches's reporting, both the Growlers and Lions have Deacon Sports and Entertainment as the majority owner, and it seems Deacon Sports and Entertainment is nearing insolvency when it comes to paying its bills. Their reporting found that Deacon Sports owed the city of Trois-Rivières $650,000 while the team sits close to $1.1 million in debts. The Growlers seem to be somewhat better off, but they too are nearing the point of no return with their majority owner on the brink of financial disaster.
They reported that the ECHL has set a deadline for DSE to sell the clubs by April 2 - that would be the Tuesday after Easter weekend with Quebec having a stat holiday on Monday! - so it's almost certain that the sale of the majority share held by Deacon Sports won't happen. If there is no sale, there will be a meeting of ECHL governors on April 2 to determine the fate of the two clubs, and it seems very clear that the ECHL will take over the operation of these two franchises at that time. What happens after that is anyone's guess.
The ECHL could find buyers for the majority share of both franchises or sell the two shares individually. With ten or fewer games on the ECHL schedule for the two clubs, the race for the playoffs will remain the day-to-day focus, but I have serious doubts that the ECHL and the other owners will want to fund a playoff run by either team, especially the Growlers where flights into and off Newfoundland are quite costly. Again, they could opt to have the teams in the playoffs, but why would any other team in the North Division want these two teams in the race if it causes other teams to miss the playoffs?
As it stands, the Growlers and Lions are both tied with 64 points along with the Worcester Railers as all three are technically in third-place at the time of writing this article, and Maine sits one point back of the trio with games in-hand. In terms of point percentage, Trois-Rivières sits at .508 with one game in-hand on both Worcester and Newfoundland who have a .500 points percentage. Maine, as stated, has two games in-hand and sit at a .508 points percentage as well. In short, the race for playoff spots is extremely tight, so the ECHL's decision on April 2 will have ripples throughout the division and conference.
In 2008, the Fresno Falcons folded on December 22 in the middle of the season, and head coach and GM Matt Thomas wasn't pleased that his team was essentially shuttered by the ECHL, stating, “I think it's disrespectful to have teams fold mid-season, whether they're in first place or last place. You work so hard as a group to create and develop a winning environment. To have it taken away right in the middle of it all is tough for everyone.”
One has to wonder if the ECHL will the players on both teams to sign with new teams and remain eligible for the playoffs. With the trade deadline having come and gone on March 21, it's not like these teams can deal away their higher-priced talent to other squads. They clearly can't do a dispersal draft because a handful of teams are already out of the playoff race, so that would be unfair to the players selected by those teams. Again, this whole insolvency is a major pickle that hasn't been seen before this late in the season, so it may take some real creativity to solve the immediate problems of folding two teams with a few weeks left in the season.
This is an ugly mess which the ECHL has to solve, so I'll be keeping my ear to the ground next week following the weekend. ECHL commissioner Ryan Crelin's in a sticky situation with this financial problem shared between the teams, and I don't envy him based on what he may decide to do. For all the momentum that the ECHL was building with their expansion plans, this is entirely deflating when two Canadian teams are on the verge of collapse.
I guess we'll find out the fate of the Growlers and Lions on April 2. I have a feeling it's going to be a dark day in the ECHL.
With the U SPORTS season officially in the books, there will be a number of players who are seeking new homes at the professional level. We've seen some move already like when Connor Blake jumped at the chance to sign with the Idaho Steelheads, but there certainly will be others as teams look to add dynamic playes prior to the Kelly Cup Playoffs starting. With Kermit the Frog playing the role of ECHL general managers across North America, phone bills would be growing in some cities as those teams get set for deep playoffs runs. Who went where? Let's find out.
You may recall me mentioning a trade involving former Laurier Golden Hawks forward Jimmy Soper that had the winger moving from Rapid City to Florida in a deal for former Bisons forward Brett Davis. Well, it seems that Soper barely had time to get settled in Estero, Florida because the Everblades dealt Soper along with former Carleton Ravens forward Kieran Craig and Luke Santerno to Cincinnati for Cyclones' leading goal scorer Zack Andrusiak and the rights to defensemen Zach Berzolla five days ago. Craig had played all of eight games with Florida before being traded after spending the last two seasons at Carleton where he scored 22 goals and added 27 assists in 49 OUA games. Let's hope he gets a shot in Cincinnati because it appeared that Florida had found a gem in Craig after signing him to a deal.
We're not done with Soper, though, because it was announced today by Cincinnati that they had suspended Soper and removed him from the roster. There was no details given for the suspension, but I suspect that Soper likely wasn't all that excited to be in Cincinnati for the remainder of the season considering this would be his third home in the month of March. Soper did play in three games for the Cyclones, recording one goal and one assist, but it seems he won't be skating for them for the rest of the campaign.
The March 21 trade deadline also saw a former Manitoba Bisons defender moved in the deals five days ago as Reece Harsch was dealt from the Jacksonville Icemen to the Idaho Steelheads in exchange for Lincoln Erne. Harsch played just 15 games in Manitoba brown-and-gold, but he was effeecive with two goals and ten assists on a Bisons team that didn't have much offence. Harsch has been all over the map over the last few seasons, playing with the EIHL's Fife Flyers, the ECHL's Cincinnati Cyclones, the ECHL's Toledo Walleye, and the AHL's Abbotsford Canucks, but it seems he'll be skating in Boise for the rest of this season after the Steelheads dealt for him. He's another solid defensive player with big offensive upside on an Idaho blue line that's already stacked!
The Iowa Heartlanders added another former Canadian university player at the deadline when they picked up former UPEI Panthers defenceman Matt Brassard from the Newfoundland Growlers. The former OHL defender spent three seasons with the Panthers, picking most of his points in his final season in Charlottetown where he finished his AUS career with ten goals and 35 assists in 57 games. This is his fourth stop in the ECHL since leaving school, having played with the Savannah Ghost Pirates, Allen Americans, Newfoundland Growlers, and, now, the Iowa Heartlanders. His 104 games in the ECHL has seen him total nine goals and 24 assists thus far, but he has played physical in his four stops as he has 128 PIMs total. Iowa likely wanted that physical presence for a playoff run, and Brassard likely will deliver.
Rapid City opted to upgrade their goaltending on March 21 when they went out and inked Laurier Golden Hawks netminder Christian Propp to a deal. Propp's time in the OHL didn't attract any NHL teams to draft him, but the Golden Hawks were quite happy with his work. In three seasons, Propp posted a 33-39 record in 73 appearances while posting a 2.79 GAA and a .919 save percentage on a team that struggled against some of the better OUA teams. Laurier only finished above .500 once in Propp's time with the program, and that was in the shortened 2021-22 season when they went 8-7-1. Based on his save percentage, though, it seems pretty clear he can make saves to keep his team in games. The Rush liked what they saw, and he'll spend the rest of the season stopping pucks in South Dakota!
The Toledo Walleye decided to get in on the free agent fun as they inked former Guelph Gryphons and TMU Bold defender Cole Cameron to a deal on March 21. Known for being more of a defensive defender through his time in the OHL and with Guelph, Cameron helped TMU reach the U SPORTS National Championship this year, finishing his four seasons in the OUA with eight goals and 18 assists in 89 contests. Cameron was enrolled for his Masters Degree in Business Administration so we'll have to see if he goes back to TMU, but he did receive his Bachelor's Degree in Food and Agricultural Business from Guelph. For the rest of this season, he'll be tasked with stopping opposing forwards in the playoffs as the Walleye seek a Kelly Cup!
On March 22, the Norfolk Admirals made a splash by inking free agent and former Calgary Dinos defender Dakota Krebs to a deal. Krebs is the older brother of Buffalo Sabres forward Payton Krebs, but don't let that fool you in thinking Krebs is an offensive defender. While he does score, Dakota is very responsible in his own end, and has shown a knack for moving the puck without spending a lot of time in the box at both the WHL level and the Canada West level. In 71 games with the Dinos, Krebs recorded five goals and 21 assists, but only had 56 penalty minutes over three seasons. He doesn't get flashy with the puck, but Admirals fans will like Dakota Krebs on their blue line as they hunt for a Kelly Cup due to his responsible play and his reliability in his own zone.
The last move comes with a bit of head scratching because the Jacksonville Icemen released former Manitoba Bisons defender Mackenzie Dwyer from his contract today. Dwyer had played 13 games with the Maine Mariners and six games with the Fort Wayne Komets this season before landing back in Jacksonville where played 32 games in 2022-23. It seemed like the perfect for the 27 year-old Dwyer, but no reason was given for his release. It may be due to numbers, though, as the acquisition of Erne that I mentioned above gave Jacksonville 11 defencemen, including Dwyer, on their roster. Given that he was playing so little, that may have contributed.
In any case, there are a pile of U SPORTS transactions that will have a number of ECHL teams and fans happier after the trade deadline has come and gone. With more U SPORTS players in the ECHL, the chances of seeing one of them raise the Kelly Cup only increases, so it will be interesting to see who stands atop the mountain when the final horn sounds. All of the players who joined new teams, though, can be difference-makers for those teams, so here's hoping these players light it up in the ECHL!
With me promising to do less on this blog, I keep finding stories that I feel should have some greater attention. One of those articles came from Wray Morrison who works as the Senior Producer Host and Partnership Coordinator for the HuskieFAN app that broadcasts Saskatchewan Huskies games. I hold Morrison in high regard as he's seen and called a ton of key moments in Canada West dating back to the 1980s, and he certainly knows his stuff when it comes to broadcasting sports. He was one of the people I had hoped we would emulate with his analysis and insights when we were broadcasting Bisons women's hockey games on UMFM.
Wray's excellent article today, though, speaks to exactly what we knew was happening during our broadcasts. With the likes of the PWHL putting its footprints on the North American sports map along with the announcement of an upcoming women's professional soccer league in Canada, there is visible growth in the demand for women's sports at the University of Saskatchewan thanks to the successes seen by the women's hockey team, the women's basketball team, and the women's track-and-field teams who all had very successful runs at their respective national championships.
Making this claim should surprise no one, but what may shock people is the engagement that media saw with fans when it came to broadcasting the 2024 U SPORTS National Women's Hockey Championship. From Wray's article,
"Hockey fans from across the country heard and watched the championships with intense interest. The spike in listenership and sponsorship on Pattison Media's HuskieFAN app illustrated the excitement of the event. 'Having a team (the Huskies) compete in the national championships added another layer of excitement for us,' said HuskieFAN Project Manager, Tyler Kinash. 'It just shows that we (Pattison Media) were on to something in this partnership with the University of Saskatchewan, years prior. We were ahead of our time!'
CBC and Radio-Canada streaming numbers were up 81% over the previous season and TVA Sports reported that the 2024 event at the U of S campus recorded its highest ratings in the history of the championships."
I offer that segment from Wray's story above because I am still utterly baffled that an organization like Canada West and its member institutions are charging people to watch their broadcasts via a subscription package while virtually no other schools outside the University of Saskatchewan offers a radio broadcast of games. CBC, Radio-Canada, and TVA Sports all showed incredible spikes in viewership numbers while offering those games to the public for free while Pattison Media saw a spike in both listenership and sponsorship through its HuskieFAN offering via radio and streaming services.
You can't tell me that free access to games doesn't have its benefits based on those numbers. And Canada West seems very happy to not take advantage of the potential windfall in monies they could recoup simply by taking down the paywall and getting more schools doing radio broadcasts. Are there any business majors working there?
At some point, you'd have to expect the people running Canada West would wise up and follow the leads of every sports league on the planet by offering their games to fans for less cost and in easier places to find them, but they continue to stand firm with their archaic subscription model that does nothing to promote growth in viewership. Casual fans, interested parties, and general women's hockey fans aren't paying to watch those games, and those numbers lost to another broadcast can't be recovered.
With a potential boost in viewership for all of CBC, TVA Sports, and the HuskieFAN outlets, the opportunity to grow their revenue through advertising on those streams could be exponential to what was seen this year and in the past. And while no one is a fan of commercials, they are a reality in broadcasting to help pay for everything that goes into a broadcast - equipment, personnel, and travel as example.
This revenue-generating idea was something we stressed over and over again with Bisons Sports, but it was never anything they pursued. Time and time again, we offered to run ads for their sponsors and partners with the understanding that they were selling the ad space on our broadcasts for revenue to be split between Bisons Sports and UMFM, and they always opted for doing nothing. When Bisons Sports chose not to renew the contract with UMFM, I guess the benefit was that it relieved them of that annual conversation about generating revenue.
Fast forward to today where Wray's article shows the demand for women's sport at the University of Saskatchewan is growing, and it's easy to see why both the university and its corporate partners are willing to invest more into helping that growth continue. By having those numbers from CBC, TVA Sports, and HuskieFAN, the Huskies athletics department can approach businesses to generate new partnerships and relationships as well, but it's not hard to see the growth in interest and demand for women's sports and the broadcasts of women's sports across all of North America.
I feel like Paul Dano's character in Dumb Money where he tells Congress about his GameStop shorting, "The hedge funds are overlooking the value in the company just like they overlook the people who shop there." In this case, Canada West and its member institutions are the hedge funds, "the company" is women's sports, and "the people who shop there" are women's sports fans.
I'm no Roaring Kitty by any means, but the fact that we had identified this trend of investing in women's sports - specifically hockey - in 2018 before being unceremoniously dumped by Bisons Sports for their precious subscription crumbs tossed their way by Canada West makes it all the more maddening in seeing Wray Morrison's article and the impact that free broadcasts had on their businesses. I'm happy that the University of Saskatchewan and Huskies Athletics are going to milk this trend for all its worth, but it's mindblowing to know that Bisons Sports decided that extra revenue streams were something they simply didn't have the time or effort to pursue.
On a more macro scale, don't be surprised if your Canada West TV subscription rate goes up next year. The pay-to-watch model seems to be the hill they're willing to die on regardless of the costs in seeing their subscription numbers fall despite the data they have from one of their member schools.
"If she can see it, she can be it" is a mantra heard across many industries when it comes to gender. Women's hockey preached it for years, yet the barriers to watching women's sports in western Canada are still in place after decades of seeing and hearing that line. My hope is that the University of Saskatchewan sees a huge investment in women's sport at their institution so they become the example others will want to follow in developing that revenue stream to aid and improve women's sports. They deserve it for having invested in their female athletes.
It might be time for Canada West to pull its head out of the proverbial sand and start getting with times. For an organization that wishes it had one-tenth the revenue that the NCAA does, moving from being a barrier to being an access point for incredible women's university sports would be a good first step. No one likes a gatekeeper, and, frankly, the subscription tolls being charged to watch women's sports aren't helping anyone's cause in any way.
The young lady to the left is Ohio State Buckeyes netminder Raygan Kirk following her team's victory today over Wisconsin at the NCAA Women's Frozen Four tournament. Kirk was named as the 2024 Frozen Four Most Outstanding Player as she helped the Buckeyes to their second title in three years which is remarkable considering her commitment to Robert Morris University to watching that program dissolve to landing at Ohio State where she played behind American Amanda Thiele and Swiss netminder Andrea Brändli. Kirk's emergence as the starter and, now, a champion this season should be a surprise, though, as she's always found her way to the top regardless of circumstances. Congratulations, Raygan!
What is remarkable is the list of goalies from Manitoba who are doing incredible things at the U SPORTS and NCAA levels along with the number of professional and Team Canada netminders who have wowed crowds across the world. Make no mistake that there will likely be another goalie or two moving into the PWHL in the next few drafts who calls the province home.
Kirk finishes her NCAA career with a ridiculous 56-10-10 record in 79 NCAA games while posting a 1.71 GAA and a .930 save percentage backed by 18 shutouts. She was part of the Ohio State win two years ago, and she added a second NCAA championship today while being named as 2024 Frozen Four Most Outstanding Player. She can add those accolades to her IIHF U18 Women's World Championship gold medal and Most Valuable Player award she earned in 2019 along with the MFHL Championship to which she backstopped the Eastman Selects in 2018. In short, she's pretty darn good and will certainly have her name called in the PWHL draft this summer.
Logan Angers had an outstanding season with Quinnipiac this year, and her college career has been equally impressive despite not having the same accolades as Kirk. Angers finishes her career with a 65-28-3 record thanks to a 1.80 GAA and a .928 save percentage backed by 19 shutouts in her 99 NCAA appearances. Angers was a star with the St. Mary's Academy Flames team prior to her attending Quinnipac where she backstopped the Flames to a 2018 Female World Sport School Challenge gold medal over Gentry Academy from Minnesota, so we knew she could win the big games. Angers should be on the radar when the PWHL draft happens this summer.
Alberta Pandas netminder Halle Oswald is no stranger around these parts when it comes to her play on the ice, and she leaves the Pandas with a 55-16-7 record in the 80 appearances she made in Canada West play. She earned that record by turning in a 1.14 GAA and a .943 save percentage that saw her pitch 22 shutouts. She was named as the Most Valuable Player at the 2017 Esso Cup with the Pembina Valley Hawks after helping them win the MFHL championship, and she was the 2023 Canada West Goaltender of the Year after being named a Canada West all-star multiple times. Oswald is one of the best netminders eligible for the draft this summer.
These three goalies will likely follow the path forged by both Kristen Campbell of PWHL Toronto and Corrine Schroeder of PWHL New York who have shown that they can play with the world's best in the professional women's league. As you may have heard, Campbell and her teammates just set the PWHL record and the record for professional hockey teams in Toronto for the longest win streak (eat it, Maple Leafs!) while Schroeder is doing all she can to keep the offensively-anemic New York team in games. Both have played well this season.
Of course, Sami Jo Small's name is well-known throughout the hockey world, but it seems more and more likely that names like Campbell, Schroeder, Kirk, Angers, and Oswald could follow her lead in stopping pucks at the Olympics in Italy. We'll have to wait and see if that happens in 2026, but it seems almost like a lock that a Manitoban will be on the goaltending roster in Milano-Cortina just as Sami Jo Small's was when Canada won the gold medal in 2002 in Salt Lake City.
One name that you likely don't know who seemingly has a golden touch is Julianna Thomson who played for both the St. Mary's Academy Flames and the York Lions in the OUA. Thomson didn't stand out in her time with the Lions as they were rebuilding, but she has found another place where she can use her impressive goaltending skills - ball hockey! Thomson was the backup netminder on the 2019 ISBHF World Championship Canadian team that captured gold before she took over the starter's role in helping Canada win the 2022 ISBHF World Championship gold medal. Julianna will be back between the pipes for Canada this year as they seek the three-peat in Valais, Switzerland from June 21-29!
Will there be more goalies from Manitoba who could have an impact in the future? I'd say yes based on a few early showings. Grace Glover should be another gem for the Alberta Pandas as they recruited the former Westman Wildcats netminder. Jordan Nepinak-Sargent has yet to suit up with the York Lions, but her work with the MFHL's Winnipeg Ice was impressive and she has the opportunity to learn from Emma Wedgewood as she looks to conquer the OUA. Hanna Pagdato may not be familiar to fans in U SPORTS, but the Mount Allison Mounties netminder is a Filipino goalie who has suited up for her team at the Union Women Ice Hockey Tournament! Each of these goalies has a unique story, but they all look to have bright futures!
It's pretty impressive to see all these women succeeding and excelling at various levels of hockey while calling Manitoba their home. Clearly, the province isn't as populous as the likes of Quebec, Ontario, BC, or Alberta, but these women are raising the bar when it comes to stopping pucks for the rest of the country. Raygan Kirk's latest achievements is just move proof that there is no stopping the stoppers that come out of Manitoba.
Congratulations to Raygan Kirk on becoming an NCAA champion for a second time and for being named as the tournament's brightest star. Both are deservedly earned and won, and there's an entire province who will be cheering for you in your next steps in life.
You may have heard me yapping about the U SPORTS National Women's Hockey Tournament this past week on The Hockey Show that went down most recently in Saskatoon. There was nothing wrong with the tournament itself, but I feel like we're not really putting the best teams in the country against one another when only two of the top-five teams ranked by U SPORTS played at the tournament. In my view, U SPORTS saw a solid field show up and compete for the national championship that was eventually won by Concordia, and I'm taking nothing away from their efforts or any of the effort put forth by any of the other teams. All earned their way there following the rules as they are currently setup. That doesn't mean things can't be improved, though.
I had proposed that the tournament move to a week-long format where there would be two days of play-in games to determine the best opponents in the tournament for the champions who won their way into the dance. In short, if a team wins its conference, it's guaranteed a top-four spot at Nationals, and they would play on the normal Thursday-to-Sunday schedule that we currently see. It's the other days that I'm proposing we change, and there's a way we can make this tournament a better version of best-on-best.
As we know, the finalists from each conference plus the hosting team get a free berth into the U SPORTS National Championship. Being the second-best team in your conference shouldn't get you a free pass into potentially winning a U SPORTS gold medal, in my view, so I want to see a win-and-you're-in idea take hold. You can't back into a championship, so let's make each team earn their way there.
What would happen is that the four finalists would advance to the play-in tournament on Monday and would square off against the next three best teams in terms of win percentage plus the host team assuming that the host team isn't the champion or finalist for one of the conferences. The finalist with the highest win percentage from its total regular-season and playoff games would be the top-ranked play-in team with the remainder of the finalists taking their spots as the second-ranked, third-ranked, and fourth-ranked play-in teams.
Pretty simple so far, right? Let's press on to the other teams.
The remaining four teams would consist of the next three teams with the highest winning percentage from across each of the conferences plus the host team. For example, the Guelph Gryphons would have advanced to the play-in stage in Saskatoon with their 23-4-3-3 as the fifth-ranked play-in team. Alberta would have qualified as the finalist from Canada West, so Saskatchewan would fall into the play-in lower rankings as the host team with a 20-9-2 record as the sixth-ranked team. Bishop's 17-11-0 record would see them ranked as the eight-seeded play-in team, and Saint Mary's would qualify as the seventh-ranked team with their 20-10-4 record in the AUS.
Played on Monday and Tueday of the week of Nationals, the eight play-in teams would play a single-game elimination game to advance to the National Championship in order to have every single team at Nationals win their way into a championship berth. If we used the above system to come up with the play-in round this season, it would have looked as follows:
PLAY-IN 1: #1 Alberta Pandas vs. #5 Guelph Gryphons
PLAY-IN 2: #2 Toronto Vars. Blues vs. #6 Saskatchewan Huskies
PLAY-IN 3: #3 Montreal Carabins vs. #7 Saint Mary's Huskies
PLAY-IN 4: #4 StFX X-Women vs. #8 Bishop's Gaiters
Just for the record, I had to move the finalists around in order to prevent teams from the same conference meeting one another in the play-in games. With Alberta joining the fray as the Canada West finalist, these seedings would only matter for the play-in games, and those teams that won their play-in game would be reseeded on the Wednesday prior to the National Championship officially getting underway. Championship teams will set those rankings and matchups.
What should be noted is that the play-in matchups would change annually. If a Canada West finalist played an OUA qualifier as Alberta and Guelph do, the following season would see the Canada West finalist play someone from either the RSEQ or AUS. The purpose for this switching of conference meetings in the play-in round is to see a greater number of interconference games played among a larger number of teams, thereby giving us a more accurate representation based on how the teams are currently ranked. With more games, national rankings start to mean something.
"Yeah, but Teebz," I can hear some of you saying, "doesn't this put the host team at risk of not playing in the championship they're hosting?"
To that question, you're right, but also missing the point. Only twice has the host team ever won the gold medal - 1998 and 2003. The host team has medalled only once since 2015 when the tournament expanded to eight teams. While I get that some schools want to host the tournament for the potential economic windfall that comes from the National Championship, history has shown that the hosts have no advantage in playing in their own barn when it comes to the National Championship. In short, hosts are just hosting seven other teams.
What may change that is if the hosts are forced to win their way into the tournament either through winning their conference or by winning the play-in game they're forced to play. Don't get me wrong in that the cards would have been stacked against recents hosts like UPEI, Queen's, and Calgary, but the purpose of the National Championship is to have the best playing the best to determine which team is tops in Canadian university hockey. If one doesn't have a strong program, no one is saying that program can't host, but this is a National Championship. Only the best teams should be playing in it.
Is this play-in idea perfect? No, not by any means, but it serves a purpose in keeping the best teams in Canada in the game assuming that they may have had one bad weekend or ran into a hot goalie. When the third-, fourth-, and fifth-ranked teams in Canada this season were all excluded from the National Championship, it's hard to pronounce that the best team in Canada won. Again, I take nothing away from Concordia in their victory as they certainly earned it, but I feel like all of Guelph, Alberta, Mount Royal, and Nipissing may have wanted a crack at the Stingers before the season ended.
Making Canadian university hockey better shouldn't require anyone to move mountains, so I'm always confused that U SPORTS doesn't listen to anyone not wearing a big "U" on their shirt. Having eight teams play in the National Championship who won their way there either by being a top team all season long or by qualifying via the playoffs will only make the team that stands atop the mountain a more undisputed champion of Canadian university hockey.
With the only real hockey event happening south of the border as the NCAA Women's Frozen Four gets underway, there was very little to hold my attention in the hockey world tonight. I take nothing away from the four teams participating in that tournament, but I have very spent very little time watching NCAA women's hockey this season so I feel zero affiliation to any team. Needing something to fill my time, I discovered the new Jake Gyllenhall flick was available on Amazon Prime, so I spent a couple of hours seeing if Gyllenhaal's version of Road House measured up to the original Patrick Swayze film.
If you came from hockey, here's that new direction I promised: I'm doing more things outside of hockey-related stories, so be prepared for more of these as the days slide off the calendar. One of the things I do enjoy is catching a film, and I had heard Jake Gyllenhaal on The Howard Stern Show last week where Stern and Gyllenhaal spoke about the film. Needless to say, I felt I needed to give it a chance.
Will it win any of the major Oscar award categories? I'm here to tell you that it won't, but it's an action-packed movie with Gyllenhaal playing a likable character in former UFC fighter Elwood Dalton. There are solid supporting performances from Daniela Melchior as Ellie and Hannah Love Lanier as Charlie, but I felt that Conor McGrgeor's choice as the villain thug Knox was long on physicality, but short on believable acting. Making up for McGregor's over-the-top portrayal of Knox was Billy Magnusson whose arc as the villain through the story as the kingpin of the criminal activity works well.
The movie was shot in the Dominican Republic, but you'd be hard-pressed to find any reason not to believe that it was filmed in the Florida Keys where the story is set. As a Canadian twist, Marvel movie score composer and conductor Christophe Beck was brought in to score the film after German composer Volker Bertelmann left the production in January 2024, and I can't say there was anything wrong with the music in the film. Again, it likely won't win Beck any awards, but the music he scored fit the various scenes in the movie.
If you like movies with action, this movie has a pile of scenes with Gyllenhaal either fighting for his life, fighting someone else, or fighting his own internal demons. While there is an underlying mystery to be solved when it comes to Billy Magnusson's Ben Brandt trying to put The Road House out of business, the movie certainly doesn't dive deep into that part of the story. Make no mistake that this film shows off a lean, muscular Gyllenhaal as an action star, and it achieves that well if that were the goal as Gyllenhaal physically looks the part. Beyond that, there's enough eye-rolling moments to make this film closer to an action-comedy than a pure action film, but the 121 minutes doesn't feel like it drags.
Doug Liman's direction in the movie works through some of the bumps the script seems to have, but Road House doesn't feel as polished as other action films he's directed such as The Bourne Identity and The Edge of Tomorrow. There are considerable camera shifts during the climactic fight scene between Gyllenhaal and McGregor that may leave one dizzy, and the use of CGI in the fight scenes makes them work, but the fight choreography feels less authentic than what was seen in another Liman feature, Mr. & Mrs. Smith.
While most of the main details are completely different, there's still an air of the original 1989 film in the movie as there are similar references made. Patrick Swayze's character is tormented by memories of a man he killed in self-defense while Jake Gyllenhaal's character has his own demons to face. There are knife injuries to the main character in both films, and both of the injuries allow the Dalton characters in each film to meet the love interest in the story. Again, no one will say this is a word-for-word, scene-for-scene remake in any way, but there are enough reference points that one can say that the 2024 film is loosely based on the 1989 film.
For all the quibbles I pointed out above, though, the movie moved at a good pace, and it didn't feel like you had to wait long for the next moment whether it was a goofy line from Gyllenhaal, him disarming a guy with a gun, or a brawl that needed solving. There were scenes where, as stated above, I eye-rolled at due to the execution, but Road House is two hours of goofy, semi-serious action schtick that should entertain you even if the story is fairly thin, the CGI feels clunky, and some of the lines are groaners.
Teebz's Rating: ★★★☆☆ (3/5 stars)
Road House is streaming exclusively on Prime Video. The movie was produced by Joel Silver for Amazon MGM Studios, and was released on March 21, 2024 only on the streaming platform. It is not scheduled to appear in theatres.
The Hockey Show, Canada's only campus-produced radio show that strictly talks hockey, returns tonight with a former dynamic duo on the program as Jason's off in Toronto scribbling in books he wrote! Obviously, we want to wish Jason well as he attends a book signing in The Big Smoke, but the show must go on, I'm told, so we'll bring back a voice we love hearing and having in studio to keep the good times rolling on Episode #600! It's a big show with a fun co-host tonight on The Hockey Show at 5:30pm CT!
Tonight, Teebz welcomes back Jenna to the show with Jason being in Toronto! Our two hosts will wrap-up the U SPORTS hockey seasons for both the men and the women by discussing Nationals, who took home some hardware, and the games played in Saskatoon as Teebz was involved in that event. Beyond that, Jenna was involved in an event that remembered Jordyn Reimer who was killed by a drunk driver, they'll discuss the PWHL as they approach their first postseason, talk about Bill Daly's idiotic statement, and anything else we can squeeze into the hour. We welcome Jenna back with a busy show tonight on The Hockey Show at 5:30pm CT on one of 101.5 FM, Channel 718 on MTS TV, or via UMFM.com!
If you live outside Winnipeg and want to listen, we have options! The new UMFM website's online streaming player is pretty awesome if you want to listen online. We also recommend Radio Garden if you need an easy-to-use online stream. If you're more of an app person, we recommend you use the TuneIn app found on the App Store or Google Play Store. If you use the TuneIn app, you won't be disappointed. It's a solid app.
If you have questions, you can email all show queries and comments to hockeyshow@umfm.com! Tweet me anytime with questions you may have by hitting me up at @TeebzHBIC on Twitter! I'm here to listen to you, so make your voice heard!
Tonight, Teebz and Jenna chat gold medals, coming up short, an amazing life taken from us, professional women's hockey, head trauma in the NHL front office, and much more exclusively on 101.5 UMFM and on the UMFM.com web stream!
If you don't know who the guy to the left is, your life is probably better off without the knowledge. That's NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly, and the 59 year-old was, at one time, an American attorney after graduating from NYU School of Law. Originally, he was hired as the NHL's senior vice president of legal affairs back in 1996 after having cut his team in the legal world with the law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom for six years. Why am I so focused on his background in law? Well, it seems that his lawyer duties when it comes to liability overrides the common sense of listening to experts in medicine when it comes to the NHL's business.
As you know, we lost both Konstantin Koltsov and Chris Simon this week to suicide after their playing days had come to an end. We've seen other losses in this manner when it comes to the lives of Derek Boogaard, Wade Belak, and Rick Rypien, and it seems like the prevalence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in these athletes may have had a hand in, if not entirely led to, the unfortunate and tragic outcomes they chose. No one would have guessed that these men died so young after being heroes to so many people, but this is the reality of contact sports like hockey.
We can sit here and debate how we need more data or how there's no direct link between CTE and the deaths of these players, but the evidence is growing that there is certainly a cause-and-effect lineage being made by scientists and medical professionals who are studying CTE. A study published on May 10, 2023 by five medical doctors and one Associate Professor of Biostatistics found that the 6039 NHL players who careers fell between from 1967 to 2022 confirmed that NHL enforcers died at approximately 10 years earlier than their peers, but the authors did note that "long-term consequences of repetitive brain injury, especially for players who frequently engage in fighting, remains unknown."
There will be people who jump all over this and point to suicide rates in the general population as being close to the same rate that NHL players have committed suicide, but the study wasn't there to examine that. It was done to study the overall effect on NHL players' lives. The authors wrote,
"While fighting accounts for 9% of acute concussions in NHL players, repetitive head trauma may contribute to the development of headaches, depression, personality changes, and cognitive deficits. Later effects include increased risk of neurodegenerative diseases, including chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) and even suicide. A recent examination of all-cause mortality comparing National Football League (NFL) players with Major League Baseball players demonstrated that NFL players had an elevated all-cause mortality. A similar analysis of mortality rates in NHL enforcers is urgently needed to better characterize the long-term association of repetitive head trauma from fighting."
This is important because the study defined "enforcer" as "any player with 50 or more career fights and/or 3 or more penalty minutes per game." That means there could be a lot of physical defenders, power forwards, and hard-checking players who got added to the study's results based on the defined criteria. As such, a bigger pool of players will result in more accurate statistical reporting when it comes to the population of NHL players as a whole.
For those asking, the study identified 331 NHL players with 50 or more career fights and 183 NHL players that averaged more than three penalty minutes per game in their careers of the 6039 players that were identified as having participated in an NHL game between 1967 and 2022. That's 8.5% of NHL players over 55 years who fall into the "enforcer" definition, but the issue gets deeper when one looks at the breakdown of the numbers because, as per the study, "2 (9.5%) died of overdoses, 3 (14.3%) died of suicide, and 2 (9.5%) died of neurodegenerative diseases, while no controls died of these causes."
Let me repeat that in plain English: of 21 unique players identified as "enforcers" in the study, seven (33.3%) died from drug overdoses, suicide, or a disease like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease while the 24 unique players used as the control group had zero (0.0%) deaths from these three factors. With enforcers more likely to suffer with mental health issues and having an earlier age of death, one would expect the NHL to be very interested in these findings or, at the very least, aware of these studies proving that head trauma has long-term negative effects on players' lives, specifically if a player has played the game in a more physical manner.
Yet here was Bill Daly's response to a question posed from DailyFaceoff.com's Frank Seravalli about whether the NHL's perspective has changed with numerous medical studies showing a definitive link between CTE and repeated blows to the head:
Look, as infuriating as that response is, Bill Daly is a lawyer who works for the NHL, so he's going to protect the league from any liability regarding the history of head contact and trauma that have led to so many former players struggling with mental health and neurodegenerative diseases. That's not me rationalizing the comment, but giving you the reason for his response. He's a lawyer for the NHL, and his duty is to protect the NHL over their liability when it comes to the responsibility the league played in contributing to the poor health of its former players.
Is there a link between head trauma in violent sports, CTE, and the negative long-term effects seen in the health of players? Absolutely, and denying that link is to be ignorant of medical science entirely. The NHL has always maintained that there needed to be more studies and more definitive proof found, though, so they aren't completely denying the medical community's finidings, but they certainly aren't embracing them for liability reasons either. Living in that gap where one can cast doubt without fully denying the results gives the NHL just enough room to remain ignorant despite it being obvious to anyone who has been involved with the sport.
Until the NHL finally caves and admits that head trauma and CTE cause major health problems in their athletes, the lawyers like Gary Bettman and Bill Daly will remain undefeated despite the losses of all the players who we once idolized. Seems cruel, doesn't it?
With another edition of the U SPORTS National Women's Hockey Championships in the book and me back in familiar spaces of HBIC Headquarters, you may recall that I had mentioned back on January 10 that I was going to walk away from HBIC after having posted 6000 articles. Well, I didn't walk away then as I had stated that "I'm going to keep writing and covering the game through to the end of the U SPORTS National Women's Hockey Championship taking place in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan on March 17," and that day has come and gone. Being that I'm a man of my word, though, I fully intend to change the direction of HBIC moving forward. That starts now.
I've had a few people reach out about my coverage of Canada West women's hockey, and I'll speak on that in a moment. What I can tell you is that writing the recaps after spending the days volunteering in Saskatoon wasn't something I was particularly excited to do. I committed to doing it, though, and they got done. One night was fairly difficult since I was craving sleep, but those recaps and articles were posted. My hope is that you read through them as we brought the 2023-24 U SPORTS season to a close.
Moving forward, I don't know how often I'll post about hockey on here. I might start working more personal articles into the mix where I've gone adventuring or learned a new skill. There will be posts about hockey, but their frequency might be less frequent. Or infrequent depending on what I'm doing. Hearing about the losses of Chris Simon and Konstantin Koltsov today brought that "life is short" perspective back to me again, and I don't want to wish I had more time to experience more of life when my time comes.
There are some guarantees I can deliver in this soliloquay, however, and one of those is that The Hockey Show will continue, so previews will still be posted on Thursdays prior to the show airing. Our annual NHL Playoff Pool known as Survivor: NHL Playoffs will run again this April, and that's always a fun time of the year. If you want to win prizes, you'll need to stay tuned for that because being the last person standing at the end of the Survivor: NHL Playoffs contest means you'll go home with some awesome new gear compliments of The Hockey Show.
I also want to draw everyone's attention to UMFM's annual, week-long telethon that, for pandemic reasons, was on hiatus for the last couple of years. Pledge-O-Rama returns this year at the end of April, and I would ask that if you want to show support for HBIC's continuing efforts, please donate to UMFM. All donations will get you either a UMFM prize package or you can opt for the tax receipt to help you on next year's taxes, but the money you donate goes towards a lot of great stuff like the remote radio gear I hauled to Saskatoon where I chatted with Robin Ulrich last week. In short, UMFM uses the money to make the station and its shows better, and we're always grateful for your support and listenership. Give a little money, get some great shwag, and help UMFM produce more amazing programming. It's a win-win-win!
Ok, so if you're still reading because I haven't addressed The Rundown yet, let's jump into that. The first thing you should know is that depending on how far in advance I start writing each edition of The Rundown, it takes anywhere from four to eight hours to produce. Because I can't write recaps until the games are over, anything played on the west coast means I don't usually start those recaps until next day. In short, they eat up a lot of my time on the weekend.
If you read The Rundown all season this year, you know I was snarky about teams not posting highlights. By not showing off their athletes, I feel they're doing a disservice to those athletes, but I want to selfishly give you another reason when it comes to posting highlights: I want to do a video recap of all the games just like The Score television network used to do with highlights accompanied by a voiceover. In case you forgot what that looks like, here's an example.
Knowing how to clip the highlight reels together and add various graphics and audio would elevate the highlight reels that are produced by the schools. Imagine having a "SportsCentre"-style video to watch on Sunday with all the same news, notes, stories, and recaps that are featured on The Rundown. It would be awesome! I've had this planned for the last two years, but it seems that Canada West decided to pull the requirement for highlight reels from the schools' responsibilities, so here's where you come in, readers.
If you truly are a fan of The Rundown, talk to your local team and athletics department. Ask them to produce these highlight reels or, at the very least, post a ton of clips on Twitter where I can weave them together. I neither have the time nor the resources to fast-forward through hours of video to pull all the goals from all eight games featured every weekend, so I need some help. Not to mention that having the schools post the highlights on YouTube like they used to do would also benefit the athletes and their programs immensely when it comes to exposure. I can honestly tell you that the PWHL general managers aren't subscribing to Canada West TV to watch games.
At the very worst, I'll continue with the written form of The Rundown while posting snarky GIFs in place of where highlights are supposed to be. If all nine schools get onboard with the idea of making highlight reels and uploading them to YouTube, I'll do the video recaps and have some fun with it. Yes, that includes Trinity Western posting goals scored by both teams. This is an all-or-nothing offer to the nine schools in Canada West, and all it takes is a little effort since most of the schools are posting clips of goals on social media.
If you want to see a recap video each week, contact your local university and make them turn their give-a-damn meter up. If they make the effort to show off their athletes' skills and abilities, I'll make the effort to take it one step further with a full highlight show. I'm not The Score network, but it seems like I'm the only person trying to get more exposure for these amazing hockey players to hopefully take one more step towards their hockey-playing dreams.
Will there be something published here tomorrow? I can't say for certain, but if something catches my eye and compels me to write, I'll hammer something out on the ol' laptop. What I do know is that The Hockey Show preview and The Rundown will exist in some form as long as I'm still feeling in good spirits about it. If you can urge your university's athletics department to help me out, I'll start getting video recaps going in October when the season starts again.
These women do an amazing job every weekend in playing two games at the highest level of amateur hockey this country has to offer while putting their universities on the map, so let's give them their very own version of The Score every Sunday. That'd be pretty awesome.
If there's one thing that I wish I could do more often, it's hopping in the car for a road trip. I can't explain it, but the feeling of having the open road in front of one's vehicle combined with the ability to go and stop wherever one wants appeals to me like nothing else, so road-tripping anywhere is something I cherish! It was time to head home, though, so we packed up the car and headed east from Saskatoon back to Winnipeg.
If you're here for hockey chatter today, there won't be much. It's a quick entry on the fun of road trips, why I like them, and some of the things I incorporate into road trips that make the time pass by faster. Nothing on this entry is scientifically proven as being true or accurate, but this stuff works for me when driving a longer distance. Feel free to chuckle at me if you like.
One of the most important things I usually have is a plan. Obviously, things can change depending on a number of factors, but knowing where one will stop for important necessities like gasoline, food, and bathroom breaks means that there is a clear timeline on when one will arrive at one's destination. There's no hard-and-fast rule on deviating from this plan - sometimes, you have to - but knowing that the first stop for gasoline coincides with a lunch break is more efficient than stopping twice.
I'll be very honest: I'm a coffee-while-driving guy, especially if travelling early in the morning or later in the evening. Driving with a coffee is that one thing that keeps me going because I can use it to break my focus on the road. I assure you that it's not due to the caffeine since I can drink a cup of coffee before bed and not have my sleep affected. And sorry, Tim Hortons, but your coffee might be some of the worst driving coffee there is. McDonald's coffee is my go-to when on the road because it tastes like coffee.
Obviously, snacks in the car also help to make the trip fun, but I've recently implemented some new snacks that have changed the snack game in my vehicle. While one can buy a breakfast sandwich or bring along granola bars in the morning, I've been bringing along a lot of high-protein snacks for a quick bite while driving. Various cheeses and meats really keep the hunger pangs at bay without the elevated sugar levels in some snacks, so having those on-hand has made the difference. I'll just add that my appreciation for Swiss cheese has grown immensely.
The last essential for me is a good soundtrack for driving. You can almost put anything that has good tempo and a solid beat on the radio, and I'd be listening, likely singing along, and occasionally dancing in the driver's seat. That keeps the energy up on a long road trip, but I also don't mind some talk radio if the topics are interesting. There was both music and hockey chatter in the car on the way home as SiriusXM's NHL Network Radio was on for a while as we cruised through the prairies listening to the topics du jour before switching back to music. Needless to say, a good soundtrack or discussion helps the time pass by much quicker!
I should be home this afternoon, so don't expect much as I start unpacking the car and getting things re-organized as I fall back into life. I do have to work tomorrow, and a long drive usually can be remedied by a good night's sleep so I'm up and ready to roll the following day. I suspect that will happen today, but we'll see how I feel when I get home.
It was a helluva week in Saskatoon where I was privileged and honoured to watch some of the best women's hockey Canada will see this year. We'll let the teams reset for next season as The Rundown goes into its offseason as well, and I'll have to make a few decisions come September next season to see if it returns. If you want to see it return, leave a comment about what you like, don't like, or anything else regarding The Rundown. Your comments may sway me into another season of fun here on HBIC!
Six teams. Three games. Three medals. One trophy. Three teams will finish their seasons with a win while three will go home and try to erase a final loss from their memories over the summer. It's the final day of the 2024 U SPORTS National Women's Hockey Championship and the 2023-24 season in Canadian university women's hockey, so let's get to the action here on The Rundown!
There isn't much setup needed for the this fifth-place game as the consolation final featured the second-seeded UBC Thunderbirds and the eighth-seeded Saskatchewan Huskies. These two teams know one another thanks to their annual battles in Canada West, so adding another chapter on the final day of the season will only give the winner a little more material for bragging rights about the 2023-24 season. Camryn Drever was in the Huskies' net while Elise Hugens stood in front of the iron in the UBC end.
The pace was solid in the early going of this game, but Ashton Thorpe would put the UBC Thunderbirds on the board after she banged in a rebound at 6:19. Kennedy Brown would get one back when she fired a puck on net that Elise Hugens appeared to misplay with her glove as the puck found twine rather than leather, and the game was tied 1-1 at the 10:29 mark as the crowd was buzzing.
Following a collision between Grace Elliott and Isabella Pozzi moments later that left the Huskies defender in some discomfort as she left the ice, a power-play was awarded to UBC thanks to the extracurricular activity. Makenzie McCallum would make the Huskies pay for that when she found room through Drever's five-hole at 12:25, and the UBC Thunderbirds carried a 2-1 lead into the break.
The physical play would continue through the remainder of the game as a general sense of dislike between these two teams became apparent, and a deflection on a power-play late in the middle frame by Grace Elliott put the Thunderbirds up 3-1. Add in an empty-net goal by Cassidy Rhodes with 1:34 remaining, and the UBC Thunderbirds would leave Saskatoon with a 4-1 win over the Saskatchewan Huskies. Elise Hugens stopped 17 shots for a final win this season while Camryn Drever's university career would come to an end with a 23-save performance.
UBC finishes in fifth-place while Saskatchewan finishes in sixth-place. Thanks to this result, we can also note that UNB finishes in seventh-place while StFX finishes in eighth-place on the consolation side.
CBC still isn't doing highlight reels. Feel free to watch the whole game in its entirety if you have two hours to kill.
The bronze medal game at the 2024 U SPORTS National Women's Hockey Championship featured the seventh-seeded Montreal Carabins and the fourth-seeded Waterloo Warriors. Montreal was looking to capture their third bronze medal at Nationals and its seventh medal since 2012, so they had some motivation to finish the season with a win. Waterloo was looking for its first medal ever at Nationals in its first-ever appearance as they had some motivation as well. Aube Racine was guarding the Montreal cage while Mikayla Schnarr was tasked with stopping the Carabins.
These two teams matched up very well as they kicked this bronze medal game off with some good pace. Brooklyn Cole would open the scoring midway through the first period when she found some open space on the left side of the slot, beating Racine with her shot to make it 1-0 for Waterloo 10:41 into the frame. From that point, the goaltenders put on a show until late in the third period when Racine went to the bench for the extra attacker. Montreal pressed, and Juliette Rolland was setup in the slot for the tying goal with 25 seconds to play as the Carabins pulled even at 1-1! We'd need extra time to determine a winner in this one, and it would be the second-straight game that went to extra time for Montreal!
Overtime would once again solve nothing, so we'd have ourselves a shootout to determine which team would go home with medals. Nothing like having individual skills determine medal winners, but a scoreless first round would be upstaged by a Kelly-Ann Nadeau goal in the second round as Montrea took a 1-0 lead after Leah Herrfort was stopped. In the final round, neither side could score, and the Montreal Carabins would prevail 2-1 in the shootout over the Waterloo Warriors! Aube Racine stopped 23 shots plus three more in the shootout in her final university game while Mikayla Schnarr made 31 saves and two more in the shootout loss in her final game.
The Montreal Carabins are the 2023 U SPORTS bronze medallists while the Waterloo Warriors finish in fourth-place.
The full game for this extended contest is below.
The sixth-seeded Toronto Varsity Blues got by one Montreal team last night, but they were in tough against another Montreal-based team in the top-ranked Concordia Stingers who were playing in their third-straight final and looking for their second gold medal in three years. The last time these teams met for the gold medal was in the very first National Championship where Concordia beat Toronto 4-1, and they were looking for that same result this year. Could Toronto do what Mount Royal did last year? We were about to find out as Erica Fryer was the starter for the Varsity Blues while Jordyn Verbeek was in the Stingers' net for this gold medal game.
Concordia got the party started 69 seconds into this game when a turnover at the Toronto blue line led to Émilie Lussier getting the puck in the right face-off circle. She skated it to the slot where her initial shot was blocked, but she got her own rebound and found room through Fryer as the Concordia Stingers took the 1-0 lead. That would turn into a 2-0 lead at 8:19 when another turnover at the Toronto blue line allowed the Stingers to find Jessymaude Drapeau down low, and she'd find space between the wickets of Fryer as the Stingers took control of this game.
After 36 minutes of goalless hockey, the Stingers made it a three-goal deficit for Toronto when Rosalie Bégin-Cyr was the beneficiary of a drop-pass from Zoé Thibault on the power-play, and Bégin-Cyr's shot from the slot beat Fryer on the glove side at 5:10 of the third period. I'll give Toronto credit for never giving up in this game despite the score, and they'd be rewarded late when Emma Potter's shot from the left face-off dot found room through traffic to get by Verbeek with 46.8 seconds remaining, but it was too little and too late for the Varsity Blues as the Concordia Stingers claimed the 3-1 victory. Jordyn Verbeek made 19 stops in Concordia's final game this season while Erica Fryer stopped 22 shots in her final university game.
The Concordia Stingers are the 2023 U SPORTS gold medallists while the Toronto Varsity Blues take home the silver medals.
The full gold medal game is below!
The Champs
A huge congratulations goes out to the Concordia Stingers, your 2024 U SPORTS National Women's Hockey Champions, RSEQ champions, and the best team in Canadian university women's hockey this season!
For those wondering, the Stingers went 39-3-1 this year in all of their games, and they were a perfect 25-0-0 in regular-season play. They were a dominant force all season long, and they earned that top-seeding. I know I complain about the rankings a lot, but it's hard to argue that the Stingers weren't the best team in Canadian university women's hockey this season. And now they have the hardware to prove it! Congratulations on an amazing season, Stingers!
The Men's Tournament
There shouldn't be any surprise here, but the UNB Reds finished off their perfect season with a trophy hoisting and gold medals in Toronto after defeating the UQTR Patriotes by a 4-0 score. For those asking, that's 43-0-0 this season in Canadian university men's hockey which is simply unfathomable. Congratualtions to the Reds on winning the U Cup for the tenth time since 2007!
Here's head coach Gardiner MacDougall speaking about their win.
If this man isn't a first-ballot Hall of Fame inductee when he finally decides to retire from hockey, something is very wrong with the Hall of Fame selection process. He's officially surpassed Clare Drake, who is already a Hall of Famer, in all measurable achievements, so let's clear a spot for Gardiner MacDougall!
More Perfection
The UNB Reds' record is rather incredible, but they weren't the only team who went perfect this season and finished with a championship. Allow me to introduce you to the University of Wisconsin-River Falls Falcons who went an amazing 31-0-0 this season to capture the NCAA Division-III Women's Ice Hockey Championship tonight!
UWRF defeated Elmira College by a 4-1 score tonight to capture the championship, ending their season with 31-straight wins this season. It was the first time that Wisconsin-River Falls had won a championship, and they also became the first team from the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference to win a championship.
It isn't often we see two perfect seasons in hockey anywhere, let alone in the same season on opposite sides of the border, but congratulations to the Falcons for their championship tonight!
The Green Army
Eleven games were played in Saskatoon, and I have to say that I had a blast attending and working at the event. I went out to Saskatoon to volunteer at the event, and I had a blast working alongside some amazing people, interacting with some incredible fans, and watching that phenomenal action on the ice. All of this was made possible thanks to the team of volunteers and staff who kept the event rolling and kept people happy.
A big shoutout to Cheri and Meghan who led the volunteer army each and every day with their positivity and fun, and the many people I got to know and chat with over the four days will be remembered fondly. We often forget that there are so many people who blend into the background when events like the 2024 U SPORTS National Women's Hockey Championship are being run, but it was nice to see everyone treating the volunteers with respect.
The Last Word
Something that hit home for me at the event was following the Saskatchewan-UBC game where I happened to be mingling where the players were meeting their parents in the lobby of Merlis Belsher Place. As we know, there was a moment in that fifth-place game where Grace Elliott fell on top of Isabella Pozzi, and it seemed like Pozzi was seriously hurt. That caused a lot of unsavoury things to be shouted from the stands about both UBC and Elliott, and I understand this rivalry will always be heated no matter what happens.
During this time in the lobby, though, one UBC player mentioned that Grace took the comments very personally as they were hurtful, and this player stated that Elliott never intended for Pozzi to be hurt. Honestly, I believe this to be true, and I think we need to remember that these women are still people who often are living out a dream. I get the rivalry and the emotions involved, but Grace didn't deserve some of the comments hurled at her from the stands. Yes, the moment with Pozzi threw some gas on an already-burning emotional fire, but Grace is a 20 year-old Arts student first and a hockey player second as per the term "student-athlete".
Sometimes, we let the jerseys and logos cloud our vision when it comes to rivalries, but we should remember that these young women are students at a university who have earned their way there because of their hockey skills. Grace Elliott isn't a terrible person by any measurement, and some of the things shouted about her didn't need to be said out loud. I'm sorry you had to endure that abuse, Grace.
I guess what I'm saying now that all of the hockey is over is be kind to one another, folks. Tomorrow is a travel day for me, so we'll get caught up when I land back at HBIC Headquarters, but enjoy the offseason, be kind, look out for one another, and have a great summer. Once more, congratulations to the Concordia Stingers, your 2024 U SPORTS National Women's Hockey Champions!
