The Calgary Dinos secured a spot in their second consecutive CIS women’s hockey championship final with a nail-bitting 5-4 overtime victory over the Queen’s Gaels. On Saturday The Gaels will fight for fifth spot in the consolation match-up on Sunday.

Opening the scoring at 2:25 minutes was the Dinos’ Iya Gavrilova. Queen’s Morgan McHaffie quickly responded with an equalizing goal, which came from a scramble in front of the net. The Dinos continued to pressure Queen’s and saw results when, on their own penalty kill, Olympian Hayley Wickenheiser scored her second goal of the championship to lead the Dinos into the second period up 2–1.

Calgary came on strong into the second period, scoring two goals within minutes of each other, with one from Stephanie Ramsay and another from Erika Mitschke.

However, Queen’s would not be run over that easily and the girls fought back in the third period. The Gaels were able to cut the Dinos’ lead down to one point by the 14 minute off two goals by Courtney Jacklin and Morgan McHaffie. In the last minute of regulation time, Queen’s pulled their goalie, Karissa Savage, to get a six-on-five player advantage rushing the Calgary net. Thirteen seconds remained in the game when Queen’s Chantal Morais scored the tying goal that sent the teams into overtime.

Queen’s head coach Matt Holmberg later discussed his team’s three unanswered goals in the third period. “That’s one thing that’s been synonymous with our team all year. It’s just an ability… As long as there’s time on the clock and breath in their lungs they stick to it and they don’t quit, and I’m pretty proud of how they stayed positive and kept battling away.  We just never quit.”

Queen’s amazing comeback in the third period was put to an end when Gavrilova, who scored the opening goal of the match, closed the game with her goal 2:37 minutes into overtime.

The Dinos solidified their spot in the gold medal championship game against Montreal on Sunday. Calgary’s Erika Mitschke commented, “It feels good going into the championship. It didn’t end on the note we wanted to going into overtime, but it’s a win and we’ll take it.”

As for Queen’s, the team is to play UBC in the consolation finals on Sunday before the championship game. Gaels head coach Holmberg explained, “For the players to have the opportunity to finish their careers with a win, regardless of what it is for, I think is important. Not a lot of players get that opportunity, and we are playing on the last day possible in women’s hockey, on a Sunday, at national championships.”

The victory comes with a potential cost for the Dinos as near the end of the game, Wickenheiser hit the boards and left the game early with what appeared to be a shoulder injury.

Queen’s Holmberg commented, “I don’t know if something changed from Calgary’s perspective. We saw that she limped off the ice there but there was no discussion of it on our bench. We just wanted to continue to play our game, and I didn’t know until much later that she hadn’t been back yet. It didn’t change the way that we were going to approach the game, and whether it had an effect on Calgary, who knows.”

Goyette asserted, “She’s a warrior. I don’t think anything’s going to keep her off the ice for tomorrow.”

The head coach continued, “We were up and down today and hopefully tomorrow we can play sixty minutes as a team, and that will be the only way that we can succeed.”