WHKY: National Championship Bound

(FREDERICTON, NB) The UNB REDS women’s hockey team practiced one last time at UNB’s Aitken Centre on Monday ahead of their trip to Waterloo, Ontario, and the U SPORTS Women’s Hockey Championship tournament.

The REDS, finalists in Atlantic University Sport, are the tournament’s No. 7 seed and will face the No. 2 University of Toronto Varsity Blues in the national quarter-finals, Friday night at 8:00pm Atlantic.

“All the lessons learned over the last four years, we’re excited to turn that into more of a mature looking team at the national level,” said REDS’ head coach Sarah Hilworth. “We have to control what we can control and keep with our own mindset and worry about ourselves at this point and making sure that all of our details are neat and tidy and we’re going in the best we can possibly be. If we have to make adjustments then we’ll do it, but we’ve got to be sharp.”

The UNB-U of T match-up will be a re-match of a national championship quarter-final last year, in Saskatoon. The Varsity Blues won that game 2-1.

The REDS and Blues also met at the 2023 national championship tournament in Montreal, in the consolation bracket, with Toronto prevailing 4-1.

“When you get to the national stage, you don’t have time to even focus on the other team,” said REDS’ captain Payton Hargreaves. “You know a bit about their tactics, but we really just have to focus on ourselves. I think the next few days is about a re-focus, a re-group, and get our game plan together there.”

UNB’s three previous trips to the national championship tournament have been as AUS champions. This year’s berth is as the conference’s second entrant.

“Winning the past three years (AUS) and then going, we were on a high of emotions and I think those emotions got the best of us because we weren’t totally locked in or prepared for those type of games that are very high competition,” said Hargreaves. “This year, we’re emotional about that loss, but I think we know we have something to prove, and we’re locked in and ready to go to prove ourselves on the national stage.”

“It hits the ego a bit knowing you’re not going in as champion,” added Coach Hilworth. “You come in as that underdog, but the cool part about our program is we’ve been an underdog for the last six years. I don’t think anyone has really given us the credit we’ve deserved and there’s a lot of doubt a lot of times surrounding our program, so I think that underdog mentality is something we’re used to and now we just have to go prove it at the national level.”

The REDS finished atop the AUS standings with a 21-5-1-1 record, three points better than the STFX X-Women.

After a semi-final series win over Moncton, the REDS fell in two close games to X in the best-of-three conference final.

“Losing a championship is heartbreaking and we’ve got to be able to regroup and get back at it,” said Hilworth. “We have to focus on ourselves and making sure we’re doing everything we can possibly do to be at our best come puck drop.”

The REDS roster features three players who call the Kitchener-Waterloo area of Ontario home, and a handful of others from nearby parts of southern Ontario.

“It’s amazing. I’m so excited,” said first year REDS defender Avery Thurston. She’s from Stratford, about 40-kilometres from Waterloo. “Just being able to go home and see my family before and after games will be awesome.”

Thurston says the REDS set the national championship tournament as a goal early in the season.

“There was no doubt in our mind that we weren’t going to go this year, which really helped us,” she said. “We didn’t get the outcome at AUS that we wanted, but I don’t think anyone really had a doubt that we weren’t going to go.”

“We have a lot more to prove than getting second place in the AUS, so we need to be ready,” added Thurston.

“The goal is, obviously, to win,” said Hargreaves. “We’ve said it from the very beginning that we want to medal, and we want to be proud of the outcome of going to the national championship.”