REDS No. 2 Seed At U CUP
(FREDERICTON, NB) The eight-time defending Atlantic University Sport men’s hockey champions, the UNB REDS, are the No. 2 seed at the upcoming U SPORTS Men’s Hockey Championship, hosted by Saint Mary’s University, in Halifax.
The University Cup Tournament takes place March 19-22 at Halifax’s Scotiabank Centre.
The REDS will face the No. 7 seeded Queen’s University Gaels in the national quarter-final round. That game will be played Friday night (March 20th) at 7:00pm Atlantic.
“We don’t put too much into the seedings at this event,” said REDS’ head coach Rob Hennigar. “We know how good all eight teams are. Our job is to concentrate on ourselves and continue to improve.”
The Gaels finished fifth in the OUA East Division with a record of 17-14-1-0 (W-L-OTL-SOL) and knocked off McGill and Concordia in early playoff rounds before falling to UQTR in the conference semi-finals.
In the OUA’s bronze-medal game, Queen’s beat Toronto Metropolitan University 4-3 in overtime to earn a spot in the national championship tournament.
UNB finished atop the AUS standings with a 20-8-2-0 record, winning nine of their final ten regular season games.
The REDS then swept UPEI out in the conference semi-finals before beating Moncton two-games-to-one in the league championship series for their eighth consecutive AUS title.
“Queen’s has gone on a great run to get to the national championship tournament,” said Coach Hennigar. “Any time a team does that you know they’re playing good hockey. Coach Gibson has them playing well and it will be a great challenge.”
UNB and Queen’s have met just once before in University Cup history.
In 2017, when UNB was host, the then Varsity Reds beat a Queen’s team that had battled weather, flight cancellations, and closed highways. They arrived in Fredericton just hours before their first-round game against the hosts and fell 5-1.
The University of Saskatchewan Huskies, champions of the Canada West conference, are the tournament’s top seed and will face host Saint Mary’s on Thursday night at 7:00pm.
No. 3 UQTR takes on AUS finalist Moncton in Friday’s early game and No. 4 Windsor faces No. 5 Mount Royal in the tournament’s first game, on Thursday afternoon.
“We’re excited to get to Halifax and get started but know we have to be patient as we don’t play until Friday night,” said REDS’ captain Colton Kammerer. “Queen’s is a strong team that plays hard. At the national tournament, all teams are well coached and execute at a high level. Our job is to stick to the game plan we’ve been using all season and continue to improve each day.”
STORY BY: Andy Campbell/UNB REDS
PHOTO: James West/for UNB REDS