By Mitchell Fox
The fourth day of action at the U Sports University Cup is set to present even more history than the national men’s hockey championship has already offered at TD Place in Ottawa this weekend.
In the national final, a new champion will be crowned as the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees and the Concordia Stingers go head-to-head in an all-Ontario University Athletics (OUA) East battle for the David Johnson University Cup.
In the bronze medal match, the Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) Bold will take on the Saskatchewan Huskies as they attempt to earn their first-ever national medal. The Huskies are the lone team in the final four to ever win the University Cup (U Cup), a feat they accomplished in the 1982-83 season.
The dethroning of the University of New Brunswick (UNB) Reds means there will be a new world order in Canadian university sports by the end of the tournament. With four of the country’s best goaltenders between the pipes and four offences capable of scoring big goals late in games, there is a feeling anything can happen.
Bronze Medal Game: TMU chases first podium against kings of the west
At the U Cup, the struggles the Bold had at times throughout the season—and in abundance in the Queen’s Cup playoffs—have re-entered the fold. Between the OUA playoffs and the U Cup, the Bold have had trouble starting on time—having held a lead after 20 minutes just once—and have struggled on the power play, scoring just four times on 33 opportunities.
Their offensive touch has been inconsistent, as despite leading the OUA playoffs in shots with 223, they were eighth in goals per game. A version of this appeared again in their quarterfinal matchup with the Mount Royal Cougars and their semi-final against Ottawa as an abundance of high-quality chances in the early parts of games resulted in nothing on the scoreboard. However, they’ve still scored eight goals in the tournament and shown when their offence is rolling, it does damage—as they did in the second half of regulation in their win over the Cougars.
Against Saskatchewan—the top seed remaining in the tournament—they will face a lethal duo of fourth-year goaltenders. Roddy Ross finished atop the Canada West with a .926 save percentage in 14 games, while Jordan Kooy finished tied for second with a .915 in 13 games, with a 12-1 record. Ross has stopped 65 of 68 shots he has faced in the first two games of the U Cup and is likely to get the start against TMU, so the Bold will need all hands on deck offensively.
The Huskies are a certain offensive threat as well, in large part due to their speed, which stood out against the Queen’s University Gaels on Friday. They finished third in Canada West with 4.31 goals per game through the regular season and scored the most in the playoffs—21 in six games, or 3.5 goals per game. The Bold play more of a defence-first, hard-hitting style, so to keep the Huskies at bay, they will have to be true to their word. Third-year goaltender Kai Edmonds is going to have to perform as he did in five overtimes against the Cougars.
Despite having played the most hockey of any team left in the tournament thanks to Thursday’s marathon event, the Bold will have fresher legs than the Huskies, who will get just 13 hours of rest between losing to Concordia and playing for bronze. Head coach Johnny Duco said he was proud of his team’s effort against Ottawa and thought the fatigue wasn’t the biggest issue, but rather costly mistakes.
“I thought we were the better team. I thought we did a lot of really good things,” said Duco. “Obviously the guys are tired and sore, but I don’t think that’s the reason we lost.”
Saskatchewan head coach Brandin Cote echoed a similar feeling about his team playing well but not getting the bounces or execution they needed on Saturday. He said it’s up to the coaching staff to get the team reset in a short amount of time between games.
“Our guys have got a lot of pride in our program and our jersey and each other, so I’ve got no question that they’ll be—as much as they can—ready to go,” said Cote. “These ones are always tough when it still means something, right? But in their minds, it doesn’t mean definitely as much as what it would be if it’s the gold medal game.”
Nevertheless, he said being able to say the team is the third-best in the country would be a title they’d be glad to take, especially considering how tight the competition has been among the teams at the tournament.
“I think anytime that you can get some hardware, it’s a good thing, especially in this environment, when you’ve got great teams here,” said Cote.
Having had their dreams crushed on the provincial and national stages a year ago and back in 2022, the Bold are going to have to find their best scoring touch, their legs and consistent defensive structure to avoid a repeat. The multi-overtime win and semi-final loss so far may feel all too familiar, so the Bold’s veteran players will have to draw from everything they’ve experienced.
Gold Medal Game: The Cinderella story or the conference champion
In the battle for the U Cup trophy and banner, two rivals from the OUA East will clash in a search for their first-ever national title.
The Ottawa Gee-Gees enter their first U Cup final as the tournament’s best story, defeating the back-to-back champions UNB Reds in overtime, besting the Bold in the final 42 seconds of regulation and earning themselves a guaranteed first medal in program history.
The Gee-Gees—who have been wearing shirts with surprise Kentucky Derby-winning horse Rich Strike and using Aerosmith’s “Dream On” as their goal and theme song—are running on determination but also on skill. They’ve shown their defensive structure is hard for even the juggernaut Reds to break through and that they can win games in big moments.
Ottawa, the hosts of the tournament, also have home ice advantage, because although they do not play at TD Place regularly, they skated there for a week before the first puck-drop and had been preparing for three weeks since being eliminated from the Queen’s Cup playoffs by the Gaels.
“We knew that we couldn’t come here and just be a charity case, getting in [as the] eighth seed just because we’re hosting,” said first-year forward Mitch Martin after the win over the Bold. “Over those three weeks, we did a lot of bag skating and got our conditioning up, and then we really tightened up those systems. I think that played a huge part when [TMU] tied the game.”
Concordia, however, are not going to give in to the underdog story. Though the Moncton Aigles Bleus made their quarterfinal victory difficult, the Stingers showcased their depth in scoring and the effectiveness of their high-speed style with three goals from different scorers in the third period. They found a similar stride late against the Huskies, as third-year forward Julien Anctil’s power play marker early in the third period was all they needed before a pair of empty- netters.
The Stingers had seven players with 20 or more points in the regular season, four of whom scored 10 or more goals. Ottawa had five with 20 points, four with 10 goals.
First-year goaltender Nikolas Hurtubise proved in shutting out the Huskies on Saturday—and in frustrating the Bold in the Queen’s Cup Final—that he can be a difference-maker for the Stingers.
“He’s been great since the beginning of the playoffs…he’s been playing phenomenal,” said Concordia head coach Marc-André Element of Hurtubise.
Nonetheless, Franky Lapenna has done similarly for the Gee-Gees with 41 saves against the Reds and 30 against the Bold, setting the stage for another strong goaltending matchup in the tournament.
The U Cup is going to go to a new winner and a bilingual team, but which it will be will likely depend on whose clutch scoring emerges first.
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