Sunday at noon, the Queen’s Gaels and the ubc Thunderbirds played in the cis championship consolation game after both teams lost their other games this weekend, falling out of the race for a medal. ubc came out of the game with a 2–1 victory and their first win of the tournament.
The first period was scoreless, but did not lack excitement. Both teams were very aggressive with one another, and both had penalties called. The first penalty was by ubc defenseman Nikola Brown-John, just after a time out called only 4:52 minutes into the first period.
ubc head coach Graham Thomas called that time out within the first few minutes of the game. “I think this team was so nervous, just being the last time that they were playing together and that as much as we wanted to use that as a motivator it kind of worked the opposite for us. So we just kind of reeled them back in and wake them up and then they responded.”
The Thunderbirds’ Sara Casorso and Queen’s’ rookie Courtenay Jacklin became very physical with each other against the boards, but no penalties were called on the brawl.
ubc’s Dayle Poulin was called for a penalty, dropping her team’s players on the ice down to four once again. However, Queen’s was unable to capitalize.
Both teams took shots, but they were blocked by the two goalies, who performed extremely well in the first period.
Chantal Morais was called for a penalty for checking, but the Thunderbirds were not able to use this opportunity to make a difference in the game, keeping the score 0–0 going into the second period.
The score remained 0–0 after the second period. After the break, ubc was taking shots, but they were struggling to get the rebounds off of Dodd-Moher’s saves. Meanwhile, Queen’s was struggling to take shots when they had opportunities, being outshot in this period 10–6.
Despite the number of shots that ubc took, they struggled to get the puck in the net. At nearly 16 minutes into the period, however, forward Nadine Burgess scored the first goal of the game for ubc. Less than one minute later, ubc added to their lead with another goal by Genevieve Carpenter-Boesch.
At the start of the third period ubc was given a penalty for too many players on the ice, which was served by Nicole Saxvik. Queen’s was finally able to capitalize on this opportunity, ending the shutout with a goal by Brittany McHaffie.
ubc goalie Samantha Langford held the Gaels to a single goal, allowing the Western Canada champions to finish in fifth place in the national championship, with the oua champions finishing in last place.
“We knew at the beginning of the year that we had a very competitive team, and if everything went as planned we would [have] hoped to be competitive in the oua championship,” said Queen’s head coach, Matthew Holmberg. “I’m proud of how the team played all year.”
“It’s always hard when you’ve been on the road for a long time, and we played a lot of playoff games. I can’t say for sure but I think [we played] the most playoff games of any team that’s here so we’re beat up, we’re tired, we played the late game last night,” explained Queen’s head coach Holmberg.
“They all really wanted it, and it showed in the end. They all wanted to play for each other and the one thing that we’re extremely proud of is we set so many bars and a lot of history this year, and accomplished a lot of things that were never done before, and I think we wanted to finish on that.”
