Veteran besties put special cap on Stingers U Sports title win

Concordia downs Varsity Blues 3-1 in championship tilt

The Stingers celebrate winning a U Sports championship.

Rosalie Begin-Cyr and Emmy Fecteau added a fairy tale capper to their U Sports careers.

On Sunday at Merlis Belsher Place, the pair were on the ice for a third period power-play as their Concordia University Stingers held a 2-0 lead over the University of Toronto Varsity Blues in the title game of the U Sports Women’s Hockey Championship tournament. Fecteau, who is the Stingers 24-year-old captain, got the puck to third-year centre Zoe Thibault.

Thibault drove to the net with the puck and made a drop pass to Begin-Cyr, who wired home a power-play goal through a screen to put the Stingers up 3-0 at the 5:10 mark of the frame. That tally allowed the Stingers to cruise to a 3-1 victory to take the Golden Path Trophy as U Sports champions in a contest played before 1,196 spectators.

The Stingers raise the Golden Path Trophy.

“I think it is the best way to finish your career as a university (player) and as a senior,” said Begin-Cyr, who is the Stingers star right-winger. “We had a great team, and I think it was like we expected from the beginning.

“We wanted to finish better than last year, so it was perfect.”

Fecteau was pleased to Begin-Cyr score her power-play goal in the third period as the two have been basically forever hockey teammates dating back before their time with the Stingers.

“I’m very happy,” said Fecteau, who is a star centre for the Stingers. “It has been 15 years that I have been playing with Rosalie (Begin-Cyr).

Rosalie Begin-Cyr had a goal and an assist for the Stingers.

“She is also my roommate. We’ve been living together for seven years, so I was really pumped for her.”

The Stingers appeared in the U Sports title for the third straight year on Sunday. The Stingers won the championship in 2022 downing the Nipissing Lakers 4-0 in the event’s final, when the tournament was held in Charlottetown, P.E.I. Last year, the Stingers fell 4-3 in overtime in the U Sports title game to the Mount Royal Cougars, when the tournament was held in Montreal.

Begin-Cyr, who is 25-years-old, and Fecteau were part of the winning experience in 2022 and the disappointment in 2023. Playing in their final campaign with the Stingers, they did not want to repeat the experience from a year ago.

Emmy Fecteau had an assist for the Stingers.

Begin-Cyr exhausted her U Sports eligibility playing her fifth-year in 2023-24. Fecteau is in her fourth-year of eligibility, but she will be completing her teaching English as a second language program and is planning to move on to the next step in her life whether it be with the PWHL or the working world.

Both players said the loss to the Cougars helped drive the team to return to the U Sports title game and win it this season.

“It was a good motivation,” said Begin-Cyr, who had an assist to go along with her goal. “From the beginning of the year, it was really like our motivation.

“It was a tough loss.”

Emilie Lussier scored the Stingers first goal on Sunday.

“I think we wanted to show who Concordia is, and we worked so hard to be here today in the final of the championship and to win,” said Fecteau. “We worked for each other.

“It was team first all the way, and it paid off.”

The Stingers posted a perfect 25-0 record in the regular season in 2023-24 and captured the Reseau du Sport Etudiant du Quebec title. They entered the U Sports championship tournament as the top seed.

At the title tourney, the Stingers blanked the host and eighth seeded U of Saskatchewan Huskies 4-0 in a quarter-final on Thursday and slipped past the OUA champion and fourth seeded University of Waterloo Warriors 3-1 in a semifinal on Saturday.

Jessymaude Drapeau (#15) banks home the Stingers second goal.

In Sunday’s final, the Stingers got out to a hot start. Just 69 seconds into the opening frame, Stingers first-year left-winger Emilie Lussier collected the rebound of her own shot at the left side of the Varsity Blues goal. She quickly tucked home a second shot to give the Stingers a 1-0 lead.

At the 8:19 mark of the First, Stingers third-year left-winger Jessymaude Drapeau skated just below the icing line at the right side of the Varsity Blues net. Drapeau, who would be named tournament MVP, deflected the puck from that spot off the pads of Varsity Blues netminder Erica Fryer into the Toronto net to push the Stingers lead out to 2-0.

Jessymaude Drapeau celebrates scoring for the Stingers.

Varsity Blues head coach Vicky Sunohara thought the Stingers game speed at the start might caught her squad a little off guard.

“I think that we were pretty surprised with the pace,” said Sunohara, whose squad was playing their third game in three days. “I thought that we had a slower start, which we talked about that they are a strong team, a fast team, and they transition well and that we need to go from the drop of the puck.

“Playing three games in three days is tough. Our team was ready, but I thought that we were back on our heels a little bit for the first few shifts.”

In the second, the Stingers had a glorious chance to increase their lead while working on the power play. Lussier received a backdoor feed at the right side of the Varsity Blues goal, but Fryer slid across the crease to rob the Concordia forward.

Taylor Delahey had a big chance to score early in the third.

With about two minutes remaining in the second, the Stingers broke into the Varsity Blues zone on a three-on-one break. Lussier came up the left wing with the puck and passed it across the face of the Toronto goal to linemate Zoe Thibault. Fryer again slid across the crease of her net to rob Thibault.

Early in the third, the Varsity Blues had a big chance to get a traction goal when first-year centre Taylor Delahey got in along on the Stinger goal. She tried to put a low shot into the net, but Stingers netminder Jordyn Verbeek came up with a kick save.

Shortly after Verbeek’s save on Delahey, Begin-Cyr potted her power-play goal for the Stingers to increased Concordia’s lead to 3-0.

Erica Fryer, right, makes a big stop for the Varsity Blues.

The Varsity Blues kept trying to battle back. With Fryer pulled for an extra attacker, third-year defender Emma Potter scored for the Varsity Blues with 46.8 seconds remaining in the third to cut the Stingers lead to 3-1. Potter’s tally proved to be too little, too late as the 3-1 score in favour of the Stingers held up as the contest’s final outcome.

Verbeek stopped 19 shots to pick up the win in goal for the Stingers. Fryer turned away 22 shots to take the setback in net for the Varsity Blues.

Stingers HC Julie Chu shouts instructions from the bench.

“Getting to nationals itself is hard,” said Stingers head coach Julie Chu. “We talked about how honoured we are to be here to have earned that opportunity.

“Getting to win is definitely something we don’t take for granted. We know there are tremendous teams that are here at nationals. For us, it is a huge accomplishment.

“It is something that we take a lot of pride in. If we would have lost today, there is a lot of pride in that locker room and a lot of pride for the journey that we took to be able to be the team that we are today win or lose. That is what we try to focus on with our players.”

The Stingers enjoy a goal from Rosalie Begin-Cyr, centre.

The Varsity Blues were making their first appearance in the U Sports title game since losing the 2003 championship final 5-4 in overtime to the University of Alberta Pandas, when the championship tourney was held in Regina.

Toronto went into this year’s tournament as the sixth seed. The Varsity Blues placed second in OUA East at 19-8-1 and fell in OUA final 2-1 in overtime to the visiting Warriors on March 9.

At the U Sports championship tournament, the Blues slipped past the AUS champion and third seeded University of Brunswick Red 2-1 in a quarter-final on Friday. In a semifinal on Saturday, the Varsity bested the Universite de Montreal Carabins 2-1 after taking a tiebreaking shootout 1-0.

The Stingers faithful cheer on their team.

“It is amazing that we are playing, and we’re still playing on March 17th,” said Sunohara. “We talked about that.

“It means you have had a pretty successful season. We have a lot veterans that really, really work hard and put their heart and soul into coming to the rink and competing every day. They’ve started something special.

“We have 13 graduating this year, so they’ve really contributed and put the program in a great place for first years and young ones to come in and say, ‘Hey, this is what the expectations are.’ This is the culture that they’ve built.”

Sunday’s win marked the fourth time the Stingers have won the U Sports championship. Concordia also captured the U Sports title the first two times it was contested in 1998 and 1999, when U Sports was known as the Canadian Intercollegiate Athletic Union (CIAU). 

Captain Emmy Fecteau receives the Golden Path Trophy.

The first win in 1998 also came against the Varsity Blues by a 4-1 final score, when the Stingers claimed the national title as the host squad.

Begin-Cyr and Fecteau said it was special to win the U Sports title once again.

“Winning is always great,” said Begin-Cyr. “We like winning, and that is part of hockey.

“It is not easy to win, but at the end of the way that is why we play hockey to win.”

“It feels great,” said Fecteau. “I have no words to describe it.

“I’m so happy. I’m so proud of my teammates. I’m very happy.”

In Sunday’s bronze medal game, the Carabins slipped past the Warriors 2-1 after taking a tiebreaking shootout 1-0 in Sunday’s bronze medal game.

The Stingers enjoy lifting up the Golden Path Trophy.

Sunday’s consolation final saw the Canada West Conference champion and second seeded UBC Thunderbirds down the host Huskies 4-1.

If you have any comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them to stankssports@gmail.com.

-------

If you like what you see here, you might want to donate to the cause to keep independent media like this blog going. Should you choose to help out, feel free to click on the DONATE button in the upper right corner. Thank you for stopping in.

Huskies put up fight, Stingers take victory 4-0

Top seeded Concordia advances to U Sports tourney semifinal

Emilie Lussier celebrates her second of two goals for the Stingers.

The Concordia University Stingers winning pedigree came through.

On Thursday night in a quarter-final contest at the U Sports Women’s Hockey Championship tournament, the top seeded Stingers absorbed the best shot from the pesky eighth seeded host University of Saskatchewan Huskies. The Stingers proceeded to play skilled and physical and slowly took the contest away from the Huskies causing a raucous crowd 2,364 spectators at Merlis Belsher Place to fall quite.

When the dust settled, the Stingers blanked the host Huskies 4-0 to advance to the semifinal round. Concordia will play the fourth seeded University of Waterloo Warriors in Saturday’s first semifinal set for 4 p.m. at Merlis. That clash will see the Reseau du Sport Etudiant du Quebec champions in the Stingers face the OUA champions in the Warriors.

Emmy Fecteau scored the Stingers first goal on Thursday.

The Huskies will take on the St. Francis Xavier X-Women in consolation semifinal set for 10 a.m. on Saturday.

“That one stings for sure,” said Huskies captain Kennedy Brown, who is in her fifth and final year of U Sports eligibility. “I mean it didn’t feel like a 4-0 game on our part.

“I think the girls battled really hard. We knew we were coming up against some steep competition them being ranked number one in the country coming off an undefeated regular season. To instill a little bit of fear in them early on and get a couple of chances, I mean that is all we can ask for from our team.

“We pop a couple of those early on, and it is a completely different game for us. For them to get a lucky bounce on that first one, it was definitely not the outcome we wanted. I mean I couldn’t have asked for more of an effort from the girls.”

Isabella Pozzi brings the puck up ice for the Huskies.

The Stingers came into Thursday quarter-final with a history of having won the U Sports title in 2022 and having fallen in the U Sports championship game a year ago to the Mount Royal University Cougars. This season, the Stingers posted a perfect 25-0 record in the regular season and a 4-2 mark in the post-season that saw them capture the RSEQ title.

The Huskies finished fourth in the Canada West Conference with a 19-7-2 mark and fell in a best-of-three conference quarter-final series in a series deciding Game 3 to the U of Calgary Dinos 2-0.

Backed by a vocal home crowd that was the largest to see a women’s hockey game in Saskatchewan’s history outside of contests involving Canada’s Senior National Women’s team, the Huskies came flying out of the gate. They had numerous quality scoring chances in the first period holding a 11-7 edge in shots on goal.

Part of the crowd of 2,364 cheers on the Huskies.

The Stingers exited the frame with the only goal coming from the stick of captain Emmy Fecteau. On a delayed penalty call situation, Fecteau took a shot from the right faceoff dot in the U of S zone, and the puck deflected off a Huskies skater, flipped high in the air and floated over top of Huskies star goaltender Camryn Drever into the net to give the Stingers a 1-0 lead.

Huskies head coach Steve Kook said it was tough to exit the opening 20 minutes down 1-0 on the scoreboard with his side having played well in the frame.

“The plan was to always take our swing at these guys,” said Kook. “We had nothing to lose.

Camryn Drever made 37 saves in goal for the Huskies.

“You look at the first period, we hit a post on an empty net. (Bronwyn) Boucher hits a crossbar. On the power play, SK (Sara Kendall) slides it through their goalie’s five-hole, hits the back leg and comes back out.”

Kook said he could sense the crowd at Merlis really wanted to erupt with noise, and he thought the outcome of the contest could have gone a different way had the Huskies scored in that frame.

“I think if we get one we get multiples, especially with the crowd the way it was,” said Kook. “We haven’t played in front of this size of a crowd, and I don’t think they’ve played in front of this size of a crowd either.

Rosalie Begin-Cyr scored the Stingers second goal on Thursday.

“I seriously thought if we would have got one we would have got more.”

The Stingers began to take control of the contest coming out of the first intermission. At the 3:12 mark of the second, fifth-year right-winger Rosalie Begin-Cyr popped home an insurance goal that gave the Stingers a 2-0 edge.

In the third, first-year left-winger Emilie Lussier scored to push the Stingers advantage out to 3-0. She added an empty-net goal to round out the 4-0 final in the Stingers favour with 40.6 seconds remaining in the frame.

“I think it was a really, really fun game to play and be a part of,” said Stingers head coach Julie Chu, who was named the U Sports coach of the year on Wednesday. “We have some experience in that locker room, but we also have a really young team in other aspects of it.

Kara Kondrat brings the puck up ice for the Huskies.

“I think for us we know that we dodged a bullet in that first period. I think we needed to start on time. They definitely started on time.

“We were lucky that (netminder) Jordyn Verbeek did a great job for us in that first period. We know that we were lucky to come out 1-0 out of that. I liked our response in the second and in the third period.”

Verbeek stopped all 26 shots she faced to pick up the shutout win in goal for the Stingers. Centre Justine Yelle and left-winger Emilie Lavoie each had a pair of assists for Concordia.

Drever turned away 37 shots to take the setback in net for the Huskies.

A group of youngsters cheer on the Stingers.

Chu said her squad will turn their attention to the task at hand in the semifinal round, but her club was going to take in the spoils of victory on Thursday night.

“I think for us we’re going to enjoy this one for today,” said Chu. “It is not easy to win, and it is not easy to win against that team.

“It is a battle, and it was a battle tonight. They played really, really well. I know that we are really grateful to play here and then to be able to earn the win and have an opportunity to play in the semis on Saturday against Waterloo.

“I think for us we will enjoy it for now and do the right things in our rest and our recovery. Once we wake up, we are going to turn the page and start our preparation and our focus towards what we need to do on Saturday to be successful.”

The Stingers celebrate their win on Thursday night.

While the Huskies can’t play for a national title, Brown said she still wants to do what she can to play two more games with the U of S side before graduating from the U Sports ranks. The emotion of how tough it was to fall to the Stingers was visible in the tears in Brown’s eyes, but she still wants to press on.

“That is kind of our focus now is just to if can draw out our season a little bit more, especially us as six years, us super vets,” said Brown. “We don’t want to be done by any means, so if we can play one more on Sunday, that would be a dream come true.

“We didn’t want to be on the consolation side of things, but that is the reality of a tournament like this. It is win or die. When you are ranking eighth and you know you are coming up against number one, those are some stiff odds to fight against.

“Our focus is to come out Saturday fresh and again just leave a mark, leave it all in the ice and hope to play on Sunday.”

James’ hat trick powers Warriors to 6-1 win

Tatum James (#88) celebrates her second goal on Thursday.

Tatum James was on fire for the University of Waterloo Warriors.

The third-year left-winger had a hat trick and one assist to power her Warriors to a 6-1 victory over the St. Francis Xavier X-Women in Thursday’s first quarter-final of the U Sports Women’s Hockey Championship tournament. The contest started out as a tight one with the fourth-seeded Warriors holding a 1-0 edge after 40 minutes before avalanching offensively in the third period.

James scored just 27 seconds into the contest to give the Warriors a 1-0 edge. After a scoreless second, the Warriors scored three straight goals to surge their advantage out to 4-0 before cruising to the 6-1 win at Merlis Belsher Place.

Defender Sarah Bestic scored at the 7:36 mark of the third to put the Warriors up 2-0. James added her second of the contest at the 11:33 mark of the third and completed her hat trick scoring a short-handed empty-net goal at the 16:20 mark of the frame.

Centre Ireland McCloskey tallied on the power-play for the X-Women at the 17:29 mark of the third to trim the Warriors lead to 4-1.

Tatum James had a hat trick and an assist on Thursday.

Left-wingers Carly Orth and Madison Pritchard rounded out the scoring with singles for the Warriors. James picked up an assist on Pritchard’s power-play tally.

Mikayla Schnarr stopped 20 shots to pick up the win in goal for the Warriors, who are the OUA champions. Amaya Giraudier turned away 22-of-27 shots to take the setback in net for the X-Women, who are the tournament’s fifth seed. Giraudier, who is in her third year with the X-Women, is an alumna of the Swift Current Innovation Federal Credit Union Wildcats under-18 AAA team.

The X-Women play in a consolation semifinal at 10 a.m. at Merlis against the eight seed and host University of Saskatchewan Huskies. The Warriors advance to play in a semifinal against the top seeded Concordia University Stingers at 4 p.m. at Merlis. The Stingers are the champions of Reseau du Sport Etudiant du Quebec.

The second set of the quarter-finals are set for Friday at Merlis. The Canada West champion University of British Columbia Thunderbirds, who are the second seed, face the Universite de Montreal Carabins, who are the seventh seed, at 1 p.m.

The Warriors celebrate their win on Thursday.

The AUS champion University of New Brunswick Reds, who are the third seed, take on the University of Toronto Varsity Blues, who are the sixth seed, at 7 p.m.

If you have any comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them to stankssports@gmail.com.

-------

If you like what you see here, you might want to donate to the cause to keep independent media like this blog going. Should you choose to help out, feel free to click on the DONATE button in the upper right corner. Thank you for stopping in.