Women’s hockey squad takes home bronze medal
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| The Huskies had an impressive showing at U Sports nationals. |
On Sunday at the MacLauchlan Arena in Charlottetown, P.E.I., the Huskies blanked the University of New Brunswick Reds 2-0 in the bronze medal game at the U Sports elite-eight women’s hockey championship tournament. The bronze medal win equaled the Huskies best result at U Sports nationals matching what the team accomplished in 2014.
The Huskies have made four trips to U Sports nationals in team history, and in a normal sports campaign, advancing that far in the post-season would be a success story in itself.
Due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic that has gripped the world, things in the sports world and outside the sports world haven’t operated like normal since the first stoppages in North America started back on March 11, 2020.
The 2020 U Sports men’s and women’s hockey tournaments along with the men’s and women’s volleyball tournaments got their first day of action in on March 12, 2020 before the rest of the action at those events was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
U Sports didn’t hold any national championships in the 2020-21 campaign. The Canada West Conference that the Huskies play out of didn’t take part any meaningful games in 2020-21.
On the Huskies front, no one knew what to expect out of the 2021-22 campaign after the whole conference had a season off. No one knew if there were going to be any stops or starts as the campaign went along.
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| The Huskies lost Jordyn Holmes to a broken leg at nationals. |
Still, the Huskies marched through the regular season posting an 11-7-2 record to finish fifth in the Canada West Conference standings. In the Canada West playoffs, the Huskies swept the University of Manitoba Bisons 2-0 in a best-of-three quarter-final series in Winnipeg and swept the Mount Royal University Cougars 2-0 in a best-of-three semifinal series in Calgary, Alta., to advance to the Canada West Championship Series and earn a spot at U Sports nationals.
In the Canada West final, the Huskies were swept 2-0 in the best-of-three set by the University of British Columbia Thunderbirds in Vancouver. The series closed with the Thunderbirds taking Game 2 of the series 1-0 in overtime.
After that bump in the road, the Huskies reset and ventured off to Charlottetown for U Sports nationals with a sizable contingent of supporters in family and friends. The Huskies were so good at nationals that it is possible they could have possibly won the whole thing, if two or three breaks went their way.
They opened play on the event’s second day on Friday taking on the Ontario University Athletics champion Brock University Badgers in a quarter-final contest. The fifth- seeded Huskies played arguably their best game of the season in that outing blanking the fourth-seeded Badgers 4-0.
At the 6:12 mark of the second period of that contest, rookie forward Sara Kendall ran it back to her days with the Swift Current Innovation Credit Union Wildcats under-18 female AAA team opening the contest’s scoring on a sweet backhanded wraparound.
The Huskies surged for three goals in the third with singles coming off the sticks of rookie defender Brooklyn Stevely and third year forwards Kara Kondrat and Nicole Fry. Kondrat picked up an assist on Fry’s empty-net tally and was named the Huskies player of the game in what might have been her best game at the U Sports level.
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| Kendra Zuchotzki turned heads as a rookie on defence. |
While the win over the Badgers was a great game for the Huskies, they did face adversity. Before Kendall scored her goal to give the Huskies a 1-0 lead, the team’s gritty, speedy, heart and soul third-year forward Jordyn Holmes broke her left leg on a crash into the boards and was lost for the rest of the tournament.
She had to have surgery on Saturday in Charlottetown to help start her injury recovery process.
In a semifinal on Saturday, the Huskies faced the top seeded Concordia University Stingers, who were the champions of the Reseau du Sport Etudiant du Quebec. Before the game, Holmes standing ovation from the crowd, when she arrived to cheer on her team.
In the semifinal contest, the Stingers came away with a 2-0 victory with Audrey Belzile and Maria Manarolis potting singles in the second period. Stingers netminder Alice Philbert made 20 saves to pick up the shutout win in goal.
Drever turned away 37 shots to take the setback in goal for the Huskies. The Huskies put up a big fight but weren’t able to find a traction moment to start a comeback.
They almost got that traction moment with four minutes remaining in the third, when Kendall rang an in close shot off the post of the Stingers goal.
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| Camryn Drever cemented herself as a top goalie in U Sports. |
Before the tournament’s title game was played, the Huskies took the ice for the bronze medal game against the second seeded Reds, who were the Atlantic University Sport conference champions.
At the 7:51 mark of the first, the Huskies jumped ahead 1-0 on a blast from the left point by rookie defender Kendra Zuchotzki.
At the 14:08 mark of the second, rookie forward Jasper Desmarais ran it back to her days with the Prince Albert Northern Bears under-18 AAA scoring a beauty goal on a three-on-one rush that ultimately sealed the 2-0 victory.
Desmarais blew down the right wing, got in close and roofed home a shot past Reds netminder Kendra Woodland.
Woodland made 23 stops to take the setback in goal for the Reds.
Drever turned aside all 17 shots she faced to pick up the shutout win in goal for the Huskies. The alumna of the St. Albert Slash female under-18 AAA team posted four shutouts in the Huskies nine total post-season games.
When Drever joined the Huskies, she came with the reputation of being a clutch goaltender having backstopped the Slash to Esso Cup titles in 2017 and 2018 as national female under-18 AAA hockey champions. Following this post-season run, Drever has cemented her place as one of the top goaltenders in all of U Sports.
Following the win over the Reds, Huskies veteran head coach Steve Kook got to put the first bronze medal around the neck of the team’s fifth-year captain in Bailee Bourassa. Bourassa is the lone fifth-year player on the squad.
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| Bailee Bourassa is a golden role model on and off the ice. |
Bourassa finished her degree in nursing and returned to the Huskies after deciding to pursue her master’s degree in nursing taking on the role of captain.
Having helped her hometown Weyburn Gold Wings in and Esso Cup title in 2014, Bourassa wanted to help the Huskies get a good restart this season after a season off in 2020-21.
She played a big part in helping the Huskies stay relevant and show you can play high-level hockey in Canada’s U Sports ranks and get a sound education that can take you on to a great career when the playing days come to a close.
Bourassa has become the perfect example of the golden role model on and off the ice. She has always represented the team in the community with class and grace.
Forward Abby Shirley, who is the long fourth-year player on the team, was another key returnee who helped show the way and be a leader for the Huskies young generation.
Third-year defender Isabella Pozzi provided a steady hand to the Huskies back end, and she was named to the U Sports championship tournament all-star team. The Huskies have a rookie group on the back end who came into their own in the post-season and have the potential to be even better in future seasons in Stevely, Zuchotzki, Larissa Bohlken and Emily Holmes, who is Jordyn’s younger sister.
While she didn’t get any goals at U Sports nationals, third-year forward Kennedy Brown came through in clutch moments in the Canada West playoffs. She had her chances at nationals and will be another key returnee in future seasons.
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| Kennedy Brown came through with clutch post-season goals. |
All the time players spent training on their own or as a team in a 2020-21 campaign that didn’t happen seemed worth it for sure after Sunday’s win.
During training time when there was no certainty of when the next game was going to be, some players had to be questioning if it was time to close the book as far as competitive hockey was concerned.
Credit has to go to all teams in U Sports for making the season happen and able to be played to a conclusion where a national champion was crowned.
After the NCAA still crowned a national women’s hockey champion in the Division I ranks in 2020-21, minor hockey players in the female game in Canada had to wonder if going down to the United States was ultimately going to be the place where they could play high-level hockey at the post-secondary level in the future.
Now, U Sports is back as a destination female players in Canada’s minor hockey system that want to continue playing high-level hockey at the post-secondary level.
The Huskies have shown they will continue to be a place where good things can happen in the classroom and on the ice whether you come from the province of Saskatchewan or any other community in Canada.
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| The Huskies renewed their legacy of being a great team to play for. |
If you have any comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them to stankssports@gmail.com.
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