REDS Draw No. 4 Seed At U SPORTS Championship
(FREDERICTON, NB) The Atlantic University Sport women’s hockey champions, the UNB REDS, are the No. 4 seed at the upcoming U SPORTS Women’s Hockey Championship, hosted by the University of Waterloo, in Elmira, Ontario.
The national championship tournament runs March 19-22.
The REDS will face the No. 5 seeded University of Ottawa Gee Gees Queen’s, OUA finalists, in the national quarter-final round. That game will be played Friday night (March 20th) at 7:00pm Eastern/8:00pm Atlantic.
“At this time of year, the numbers beside the teams don’t matter as much as how you play,” said REDS’ head coach Sarah Hilworth. “We’re excited to be in this position and ready for the challenge.”
The Gee Gees, who went 15-11-1-1 (W-L-OTL-SOL), qualified for the national championship tournament after knocking off the OUA’s top regular season team, Laurier, in the conference semi-finals. Ottawa then lost the one-game OUA championship game to Guelph.
“We know the Gee Gees are a very disciplined and structured team,” said Coach Hilworth. “They defend well, they compete hard, and they don’t give you much time or space, so we know it’s going to be a tight game.”
After a 20-6-1-1 regular season, the REDS beat the STFX X-Women in the AUS championship series, claiming their fourth conference title in five seasons and earning their fifth consecutive trip to the U SPORTS Championships.
“For us, it’s about playing to our identity,” said Hilworth. “We need to skate, play with pace, win battles, and get to the hard areas of the ice. If we compete the way we know we can and play our style of hockey, we’ll give ourselves a good chance to have success.”
Canada West champions UBC are the tourney’s top seed. They’ll face No. 8 Montreal in the quarter finals.
No. 2 Concordia takes on No. 7 Manitoba, and No. 3 Guelph faces tournament hosts Waterloo.
STORY BY: Andy Campbell/UNB REDS
PHOTO: Bryan Kennedy/for STFX Athletics