Photo credit: Derek Elvin/Electric Umbrella/U SPORTS

By Ryan Flaherty

PLAYING FOR GOLD

Stingers and Blues ready to battle for gold

Mar 16, 2024 | 11:48 PM

The final combatants in the fight for the Golden Path Trophy are set as the Concordia Stingers and Toronto Varsity Blues will meet in the championship game after a pair of tightly contested wins on semifinal Saturday at the U SPORTS women’s hockey championship in Saskatoon.

A shorthanded goal by Jessyanne Drapeau with less than 90 seconds to play salted away a 3-1 victory for Concordia over the fourth-seeded Waterloo Warriors in the day’s first semifinal. The OUA champion Warriors, making their first ever appearance at nationals, battled hard for sixty minutes but had to play from behind for most of the game after the number one ranked Stingers jumped out to an early lead, then doubled it before the end of the opening period.

Concordia got on the board just past the five minute mark of the first. Emilie Lavoie intercepted a cross-ice pass just inside the Waterloo blue line then fired a shot on goal and Zoe Thibault was there to slide the rebound through the legs of Warriors goalie Michayla Schnarr for the game’s first goal. The Stingers added another late in the frame as Courtney Rice grabbed the puck along the boards then drifted into the slot before roofing a wrist shot into the top corner.

After a scoreless second, the Warriors found some life in the opening moments of the third. On a power play, Tatum James buried her fourth goal of the tournament to make it a one-goal game at the 29-second mark. Waterloo would continue to press for the equalizer, but after being gifted a late power play, it was the Stingers instead who capitalized as Drapeau got behind the Warriors defence and beat Schnar on the blocker side.

The RSEQ-champion Stingers now have a shot at their second national title in three years and fourth overall.

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It took a shootout to confirm the Concordia’s dance partner for the title game as Ashley Delahey scored in the sixth round and Erica Fryer made the game-clinching stop to propel the sixth-seeded Varsity Blues to a 2-1 win over the seventh-seeded Montréal Carabins in Saturday’s second semifinal.

Kalie Chan gave the Blues a lead at 9:55 of the first period, pulling the puck off the wall and firing a shot from the top of the circle past a screened Aube Racine and into the Carabins net.

It seemed for a while like that might be all the offence Toronto would need but hat changed five minutes into the third period as Montréal captain Jessika Boulanger stickhandled through a pair of defenders before sending a pass across to Juliette Roland, who redirected it past Fryer from the top of the crease to level the score.

For the first time this week, overtime was required. But despite some close calls at both ends, the ten-minute period of four-on-four hockey solved nothing and it was off to the shootout. After the first five shooters for each team failed to score, Delahey stepped up, beating Racine on the glove side. That left Amélie Poiré-Lehoux needing to score to extend the game but Fryer made a glove save to send the Blues pouring over the boards in celebration.

Toronto is making its first appearance in the championship game since 2003. The Blues won their only national title two years before that.

So it will be the team who hasn’t been there in two decades taking on the team who’s going for a third straight year. Toronto and Concordia will square off for gold at 6 pm local time on Sunday. Montréal battles Waterloo for bronze at 2 pm.

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Twitter/X: @RFlahertypxp