“It’s a grind and you can’t take a weekend off” – Steve Kook
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The U of S Huskie women’s hockey team learned some valuable lessons from the 2021-22 hockey season. One of those lessons is, it’s tough to win on the road in the playoffs. Saskatchewan finished fifth in the Canada West standings with an 11-7-1 and 2 record, and yet were still able to earn a bronze medal at the USports hockey championships in Charlottetown. The Huskies were able to defeat both fourth place Manitoba (in Winnipeg) in the league quarter-finals, and first place Mount Royal (in Calgary) in the Canada West semi-finals to lock down a berth with seven other schools to nationals. (The Huskies did lose to second place UBC in the Canada West final.)
“What I hope our players take away from this is how important it is to have a home (playoff) series”, said Huskie head coach Steve Kook. “We were emotionally drained and physically drained. That’s exam time too.” Canada West will return to a 28 game hockey schedule in 2022-23, as opposed to the 20 game shortened schedule that teams took part in last season because of the pandemic. “As the season goes on this year, we have to understand it’s a grind and you can’t take a weekend off”, said Kook.
Saskatchewan blanked Brock 4-0 in the opening game of the USports championships last March, before losing to Concordia 2-0 in the semi-finals. The Huskies were impressive in a 2-0 win over UNB in the bronze medal game. Goaltender Camryn Drever, who is entering her fourth year with the Huskie program, made the most of her first season as starter. The Edmonton product capped off the 2021-22 season with a 17 save performance in the shut out win in the bronze medal game.
In six 2022 Canada West playoff games, Drever had a league best 1.31 goals against average. “Cam will admit that it took her a little while to carry the load, game to game, and handle that pressure”, said Kook. Drever played in 16 of the Huskies’ 20 games last season. (Second most in the conference.) “She did well to settle in, in the second half and obviously in our playoff run.”
