U of S women’s hockey team gets set for USports hockey championships
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The Huskies women’s hockey team has gone through just about every emotion possible with the 2022 USports championships on the horizon. “It’s strange,” admits coach Steve Kook. The Huskies advanced to, not only the Canada West final, but the USports championships after defeating Mount Royal in a conference semi-final on March 4th and 5th with 2-1 and 1-0 victories over the Cougars. To sweep a team in a best-of-three series on the road, that had the best regular season record, gave the Huskies their biggest lift of the season.
The Huskies then went to UBC to face the T-Birds in a best-of- three conference final on March 11th and 12th. Not only did UBC sweep the series, but the Huskies failed to score once in 4-0 and 1-0 defeats. “You lose a series, but you’re not done,” said Kook. “The players really didn’t know how to react. We got over it quickly.”
Now the University of Saskatchewan prepares for the USports championships in Charlottetown, PEI on March 24th, 25th and 26th. “You have to reset,” said Kook. “It really is like another season.” The Huskies have one Canada West conference title in the program’s history, and have made three appearances at the USports championships (2004, 2014, and 2018). Two players from the 2022 team (Bailee Bourassa and Abby Shirley) competed in the 2018 national championships.
Since there are playoffs games remaining in some other conferences, the Huskies won’t know which teams advance to the USports championships until the Sunday before the tournament. “It doesn’t matter”, said Kook. It’s an eight team/three day event, and one loss means you are out of contention for the title. That’s why Kook believes it is best for his team to stick with the style of play that has brought them to this point on the season. “You got 60 minutes to make a difference. If you start trying to find shortcuts, and you have 20 people on different pages, it doesn’t work.”
