By Harsh Kumar

With the current pre-season sprint coming to an end, the Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) Bold men’s and women’s hockey teams are gearing up to start the 2025-26 regular season. 

Men’s hockey

The men’s team is coming off a successful 22-15-0 record in which they finished first in the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) Western conference. After making it to the OUA Queen’s Cup finals, they fell short, losing 4-1 to the Concordia University Stingers. 

Their hard-fought Queen’s Cup battle, however, would bring them to qualify for the U Sports University Cup (U Cup) Championship in Ottawa. Having lost the bronze medal game, unable to place third, the team returned to Toronto placing fourth in the championship.  But that wasn’t before the team broke the record for the longest U Sports men’s hockey game to ever be recorded. In the team’s U Cup quarter-finals match-up against the Mount Royal Cougars, the game went into five overtimes, spanning six hours and ending 5-4 in the Bold’s favour. 

With a number of new players on the roster, the team, led by head coach Johnny Duco, looks to recapture their success from last season and propel even farther. That starts with Duco setting a new standard for his team.

“I think we’re fortunate to have such a great culture that we’ve really built here over the last number of years,” said Duco. “We’ve got some veteran players who know what the expectation is and we’ve been to three of the four last national tournaments and we’ve been in our league finals a couple of years in a row and we certainly feel as a group we have some unfinished business.”

For fourth-year forward and team captain Connor Bowie, who comes off a regular season with 10 goals and 13 assists in 24 games, winning it all is the primary goal of the team this upcoming season. 

“The first and major goal this year is to win the 114th Queen’s Cup. We’ve been there back-to-back years and unfortunately lost both,” said Bowie. 

This hunger echoed throughout the team. For fourth-year defenceman Liam Ross, the team’s focus and effort will be able to push them over the hump.

“We just have to concentrate on playing as hard [as we can] and to our full potential each game,” said Ross. “I have no doubt in my mind that we’ll be able to make it back to the national championship again this year.”

As the fiftieth captain in program history, Bowie discusses the importance of shaping the atmosphere in the locker room.

“It starts with Duco setting the tone for me and just becoming a family,” said Bowie. “That’s extremely important. As my time as a leader of the many teams I’ve been on in my career, that’s what sticks out to me, and what that means is that everyone feels welcome as soon as they walk into the locker room.” 

With 15 new recruits to the team, establishing a close and strong dynamic will be what Duco considers “a learning curve.”

“We have…a lot of new players that haven’t played in the league and maybe don’t fully grasp what U Sports and OUA hockey are like and the physical challenges,” said Bowie. 

Despite a plethora of new players hitting the ice, the team had a cohesive and successful pre-season, ending it with a 4-2 record.

“We’re focused on trying to get better each and every day to see…how quickly [the team] is picking things up and gelling together—coming together as a team,” said Duco after the team’s 5-1 win against the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees on Sept. 20. “I use the word ‘team’ intentionally. You can have a bunch of individuals and you won’t win a game. So we’re really becoming a team, we’re starting to become a family.”

Women’s hockey

The women’s hockey team is coming off an 11-16-0 record after falling in the first round of the OUA playoffs to the Queen’s University Gaels. With eight new players on the roster, this younger team will be looking to make a push in the playoffs this upcoming season. 

Head coach Lisa Haley is looking to build on where the team finished last season and hopes to “take another step from where we finished last year.”

The team has not played a playoff game on home ice since Feb. 25, 2023. After a two-year drought, the team is hoping to bring back post-season play to the Mattamy Athletic Centre (MAC).

“Plain and simple, we want to host a playoff game at our house,” said Haley. 

For Haley, she felt like the team “left a little bit on the table” last year. She’s seeking out more emphasis to be put on the goal side of the ice, where last season the team was tied for the second-highest goals against in the OUA. 

“We want to generate a lot more offense when we’re in the other team’s end and we want to play a lot more aggressive defensively when we don’t have the puck,” said Haley. 

Fifth-year forward and captain of the women’s team Cailey Davis is coming off a season in which she had three goals and 11 assists in 26 games. 

“Our biggest goal this year will be to make the post-season and…I want to be one of the captains that leads the team there and makes sure we stay connected as a group and that we’re doing everything we can,” said Davis.  

Though the team has a new look this season, Davis has confidence that the group will buy into a new brand of Bold hockey. 

“We’re a pretty new group, we got a lot of new faces…that will be in the lineup now. We’re not going to be the fanciest team…but we’re going to find a way to connect with each other and we’re going to outwork [opponents],” said Davis. “That’s going to be our biggest strength this year—our work effort.” 

The team’s pre-season has seen more struggles than success, having lost more than half their games. But with a few matches left, the team still has time to determine how they can fit together on the ice.

“The sum should always be greater than the parts, and we’re just sorting out how all the parts fit together to make our team the most successful,” said Haley. 

Third-year goaltender Shannon Harris believes that a change in mindset will be the key to finding success.

“As a team, we need to realize that a win is a win but we need to win consistently for it to mean anything. We need to show up and give 100 per cent every game,” said Harris. 

The women’s team will continue on the road in their game against the Western University Mustangs on Oct. 3 in London, Ont. The men’s team will begin their regular season on Oct. 2 against the Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks at the MAC.