This weekend, the country’s top university women’s hockey teams faced off at the Varsity Arena to compete for the 2013 CIS championship.
“The sport has grown exponentially since the championship began in 1998,” explained Beth Ali, U of T’s Director of Intercollegiate and High Performance Sport, and the CIS women’s hockey championship convenor. “The pioneers of the game are now coaching, mentoring, or back in school finishing their education. These impressive women continue to contribute to women’s hockey by developing the next generation of outstanding female athletes.
“There are now 31 CIS schools with women’s hockey programs, and that is a 35 per cent increase from the inaugural tournament in 1998.”
Competing this year were Les Carabins de Montréal, the St. Francis Xavier X-Women, the Queen’s University Gaels, the UBC Thunderbirds, the defending champion Calgary Dinos, and the Varsity Blues, who had a disappointing OUA playoff run, but made the tournament automatically by virtue of hosting.
Les Carabins de Montréal ranked as the first seed for the championship after beating the McGill Martlets, who have won seven straight RSEO titles, and played in 10 national championships.
“It’s been an exciting week and weekend; it was a difficult playoff. I think we’re now refocusing on what we need to do in this championship because after winning in such an emotional way, it would be easy to stay in the past and focus on what we’ve done. But once you’re here you know that anybody here can win, and so we just need to keep focusing on giving our best performances, and whatever happens, happens.”
The St. FX x-Women ranked as the second seed, led by head coach David Synishin, who is in his eleventh season coaching the team. The team played a near perfect season with a 23–1 record, posting the best regular season numbers of any team in the weekend’s tournament. “Our conference was probably tighter than it’s ever been,” said Synishin. “We were number two a couple of years ago, and were fortunate enough to come out with silver, so we have a number of players that have been here and they’re aware of the level of play.”
Queen’s head coach Matt Holmberg did not attend the press conference, because his wife was in labour. Team captain Kristin Smith spoke for the team saying, “We’re actually expecting that he’s going to make the drive for our game on Friday. We’re just really excited for him he’s always been there for us and we know that family always come first and that’s what he stresses to us, so really there’s no exception for him, but he’ll definitely be here Friday. That’s just how he is.”
One struggle shared by all of the teams competing in the championship is that they are playing against teams they rarely see. “I think our mindset is just that we focus on ourselves and what our game is and what we want to do,” said Dinos player and Canadian Olympian Hayley Wickenheiser. “I don’t think we really try to worry too much; that’s the coaching staff’s job to… worry about little nuances going on, and powerplays and stuff like that, and how to react, but for the most part I think we really are just focused on playing a solid team game and about playing people as we go.”
Dinos head coach Danielle Goyette added, “For us it’s playing every game like it’s your last game. We know every team here can win a championship — that’s the fun part about it, and it’s teams that we never play against. We never played St. FX. [We’re] looking forward to it, but at the same time we have to make sure that we play our game.”
The top student athletes in the country playing at U of T this past weekend included Olympians Wickenheiser and Russian national team member Iya Gavrilova who both play for the Dinos.
Wickenheiser was cautious about the Dinos’ chances. “Everybody knows that we won last year, but that doesn’t really mean anything for this year. Especially, I think in the CIS the personnel changes pretty frequently in this level of hockey with players coming in and out and I think you’re really only as good as what you’ve done in the last game,” she said. “At this level, it’s pretty up and down, so for us it’s a chance to get a second life, and that’s what we’re looking forward to.”
Wickenheiser, who has been a star Olympian multiple times and has played men’s professional hockey in Europe, notes a huge difference between CIS hockey and the more competitive levels. “[CIS hockey is] harder hockey to play, I would say. Things don’t happen quite as naturally as at the higher levels or with more experienced players. In the same token, it’s exciting. It’s very unpredictable and any point in the game things can change in a heartbeat, and I think for a fan that’s exciting to watch, but it’s probably the hardest hockey I’ve ever played.
“You need to be more patient. You need to find a way to make the players around you better, find ways to make the team successful, and at the same time keep emotions in check in terms of staying calm and stuff because, like I said, anything can happen, and turns of the game happen often.”
“For us, we’re just really excited,” admitted UBC Thunderbirds head coach Graham Thomas. “I think every coach and staff and team plans at the beginning of the season to make it to this tournament, and for us we’re just really fortunate to be able to represent our university and our program for the first time.”
Blues coach Vicky Sunohara believes that the tournament could be an important step in promoting women’s hockey. “You have so many people watching the world championship gold medal games and so many people watching the Olympics. We need to get these things on tv because there’s a huge audience for it, and it’s such a positive thing.
“I know that our host community has done such a great job of trying to spread the word to get young and older female hockey players to come out and watch. People are spending hundreds of dollars to go see the Leafs, and it’s a fraction of the cost for such a great product.”
