When Melissa McCoy found out her RMC volleyball team had qualified for this year’s OUA Final Four championship tournament, she was on a chairlift in Quebec — and she was stunned.

Her team’s season had ended just days earlier, or so she thought, when they lost the quarterfinals in straight sets to the York Lions. What she was about to find out on that chairlift was that the Lions had used an ineligible player in that match and, as a result, were forced to forfeit. York was out. RMC was in. For the first time in team history, the Paladins had advanced to the Final Four.

The instructions on McCoy’s phone were simple: Get back to Kingston. She didn’t waste a minute. Her spring break had come to an abrupt end, but it didn’t matter. A Final Four appearance in her senior year was a dream scenario, especially since three years earlier, in her rookie season, her team had posted an 0-19 record. For the fifth straight year.

The story of the RMC volleyball team’s relatively rapid rise, from 0-19 to 9-9 in four years, is one that has a lot to do with recruiting — a process made infinitely more difficult for their coaching staff by the general nature of the military college and its rigorous application process. (Women's volleyball is certainly not the only RMC team that has found it hard to compete in OUA play.)

Head coach Carolyn Welden began to understand the challenge inherent in recruiting players to RMC when she took over as head coach in 2003. She realized it wasn’t as easy as going to games, assessing players and recruiting top talent. She had to find quality players that were also likely to be drawn to RMC’s regimented culture and the perks that went with it — free schooling, an hourly wage and a guaranteed job upon graduation. She had to find athletic, ambitious women that were equally excited about playing volleyball as they were about partaking in military life, and could pass the battery of tests the school’s admissions team administered.

Given the familial nature of the military and, consequently, the school, she opted to go to communities that had higher volumes of Canadian Forces.

“Four or five years ago it finally started making sense to me,” she said. “How to attract these people. How to explain what a great opportunity this is to represent your country.”

After that string of 0-19 seasons, one of the athletes she was able to attract was Melissa McCoy, a Kingston native who had excelled as a middle blocker with the Kingston Pegasus and National Capitals club teams.

Although McCoy didn’t commit to RMC’s regular officer training program, she did commit to the school as a reservist, paying her own tuition with no mandatory service after graduation. Her first season with the team, the 2008-09 year, proved tough. She was used to winning. RMC didn’t win a single game.

“There were definitely days where I questioned why I was there,” she says. “After one of the games I broke down and cried and said I didn’t know if I could do this anymore but Carolyn assured me next year would be better. I had faith in her ability to recruit people.”

Her coach didn’t disappoint.

Melissa McCoy (4) and her teammates celebrate following
RMC's first OUA win on Feb. 7, 2010. (RMC Athletics)
The following year, five top players committed to the team and their impact was immediate. Norah Collins was named to the OUA's all-rookie team and the Paladins won their first ever OUA game, beating the Windsor Lancers 3-2 and bumping their record to 1-18. While that achievement may have been laughable to some, since they still lost most of their other games in straight sets, it was a milestone for McCoy.

“It was the most relieving feeling when we scored that last point,” she says. “There was a picture taken after that last point and I’m jumping in the air. It’s my favourite picture of our four years.”

The upward slope continued from there: a gentle rise, but a meaningful one.

In 2010-11, Welden added more highly-regarded recruits, including the 6’2 Litjens twins, Mallory and Chelsey. Stars with the Ottawa Mavericks, they were drawn to the school because of their father’s stories of RMC student life — a life, he explained, that could only be understood by attending. They were also drawn by the career prospects. Like their father, both girls wanted to pursue military careers as French-speaking engineers.

The twins helped the team to a 7-12 record, six more wins than they had the year before. In December, when they were 2-5, the Paladins were identified here as a potential playoff team. They indeed made the playoffs, though they lost 3-0 to York in the first round.

In 2011-12, the team’s goals changed drastically. It was no longer just okay to participate. It was time to compete. Despite having a roster of only 11, the team vowed to make the Final Four.

“Losing a game this year was a big deal,” Chelsea Litjens explains. “This year we went into games expecting to win them, not hoping to win. There was a big shift in mentality.”

They won half their regular season games, relying heavily on just seven of those 11 players. Early on, they started a three-game winning streak with a 3-0 victory over Waterloo on November 11th, just hours after marching in a Remembrance Day parade with a Waterloo-based unit to honour both their fallen soldiers and their military obligations.

That need to constantly balance military and sport is what makes this team unique. The players are driven to persevere by a passion for the work they are doing, regardless of whether their ties to the military are years old or newly-forged. While the Litjens twins are the only two players currently on the roster that have direct family ties to the Canadian Forces, the team as a whole takes pride in their connection to the military.

“Being able to serve my country makes me feel like I am truly doing something important with my life,” Mallory Litjens says. “Our coach says it best: ‘We aren’t a normal team. You’re university students during the day, but after that you’re in the military, you serve your country.’”

As for the Final Four, the team finished fourth, losing in straight sets to both the Ottawa Gee-Gees and the Toronto Varsity Blues, but their presence was a victory in itself.

Although they did not win their way into the tournament, not one person quoted in this article considered their Final Four appearance to have an asterisk. It simply didn't matter to them how they got there, an understandable sentiment considering where they came from.

They've realized their goal and have set the bar even higher for next season.
All of the visiting players, coaches, support staff, and media have gone home. Those in Fredericton might be finally ready to move past the beverage-assisted What Happened? phase and start drying out and getting ready for next season.

If anyone deserved a University Cup win, it was the McGill Redmen. The oldest hockey team in the world at 136 years. Never won the CIS championship, and yet they pulled it off on the 50th anniversary with its founder, 91 year-old Major W.J. “Danny” McLeod, in the house. Graduating captain Evan Vossen, one of the many "nice guys" at the tourney, scored the winner six minutes into overtime after polarizing figure Francis Verreault-Paul cost his team their third period lead, and almost the game, for running Western goalie Josh Unice. After the win and with post-game interviews still happening Vossen almost ran over several of us in the rush to skate over and hug his mother when several parents were allowed onto the ice.

Salt in the wounds for many was that Verreault-Paul won the tournament Most Valuable Player award. I understand voting was already completed a few minutes before V-P's brain cramp, and he did have a strong tournament, but there is a good argument for giving the honour instead to Unice, who stood on his head just to get the Mustangs into the championship game.

The organizing committee did a great job, even if they didn't get the final outcome they and the Fredericton fans wanted. Twenty bottles of champagne and several cases of beer were placed in the McGill dressing room while they were still out on the ice celebrating their win. Everyone in attendance at the games this week was given a free 50-page-plus souvenir program magazine. (Not overcharging for the game program, what got into these people?!) Every game was a sell-out, all seven, and only about a thousand paid-up fans blew off Sunday's final, since UNB wasn't playing, and stayed home and watched the game on TV. The atmosphere in the AUC certainly wasn't as electric as last year, but it wasn't bad and the exciting game certainly helped.

Today's Daily Gleaner reprinted an e-mail from ever-classy Western head coach Clarke Singer to Maureen Sparks, the woman who was in charge of everything behind the scenes.
Maureen, Brad and Wayne:
We just arrived back on campus after a wonderful week in Fredericton. Our entire group was very happy with the experience at the nationals right from the banquet to the transportation to the first class treatment at the rink. The amount of work and effort you all put into this event was certainly appreciated by all members of our team that spent the week with you. I hope our paths will cross again soon. Thanks again, We will always remember our two weeks in Fredericton with you guys over the last two years.”
Clarke Singer
 UNB Athletic Director John Richard was asked for his highlights from a host perspective:
“I thought Major Danny McLeod on the ice, presenting his own award as MVP was pretty impressive,” said Richard. “I thought the extras we put around the 50th anniversary, the all-decade teams, honouring the 1962 team, the Hockey Hall of Fame, the Budweiser Hockey Hut, were all home runs.”
About the only thing he would change about the event, said Richard was “two more goals against Western.”
Next year it is the PostashCorp University Cup in Saskatoon. It should be another great tournament, as they showed in 1998-2000 that they are up to the task (although they'll have a lot more tickets to sell to fill that big rink).

Michel Belanger worked into the wee hours Monday morning, with McGill's Earl 'the Pearl' Zuckerman at his side, to write the CIS game story with the all-stars, and update all the stats, and add in the video clip: FINAL: Redmen capture first University Cup

The local Daily Gleaner had great coverage of the weekend, but it didn't leak past their paywall.

Darren Zary was a writing machine all week, filing both for his his base at the StarPhoenix and the PostMedia wire: University Cup full of strange twists; Saskatoon gets ready to host tournament; McGill wins first men’s hockey title in 135 years.

The Brunswickan, 'Canada's oldest student publication', provided great continuous coverage (and even took care of the game recaps for vreds.ca so I wouldn't have to!).

UNBHockeyFans.com raised the bar for all CIS hockey fan sites out there this past week, and this season.

Now until September exhibition games we just have recruiting rumours to chew over and digest.
Join us this evening for our liveblog of the seventh and championship game of the 2012 Cavendish University Cup, between the McGill Redmen and the Western Mustangs.

McGill is looking for their first-ever University Cup, while the Mustangs are looking for their second in this all-OUA finish.

Puck drop is 8:00 pm ADT (7:00 pm EDT). The game will be webcast on ssncanada.ca and on radio on CHSR-FM 97.9 in Fredericton (and audiocast at chsrfm.ca) as well as live coast-to-coast across the Rogers Sportsnet channels.

The sun did come up this morning in Fredericton, but many UNB fans are probably still numb or in shock, especially newer fans who have just come to expect the Varsity Reds to win. Just like the V-Reds players in the post-game who said they're still trying to process the outcome of not winning. Probably the closest analogy I can make to the current situation in Fredericton is how every year Canadians (thanks to TSN) expect Team Canada to win at the World Juniors and yet, the last two years those teenagers under incredible pressure and scrutiny have come up short and then feel they've let everyone down. Tournaments are really hard to win. Stuff happens. You don't get to bounce back in the next game of a series. 

Last night Western took advantage of their bounces and opportunities in the first period and executed a solid total-team defence structure built around a hot goalie to hang on for the upset win. A lucky bounce off a UNB defenceman went onto a Western stick and was soon in the V-Reds net. The Mustangs executed on a five-on-three power play. And then in the same six-minutes span Jason Furlong took advantage of a puck skipping over a UNB defencemen's stick to score on a shorthanded breakaway. That took the already meek crowd out of the game.

Josh Unice was outstanding, again, in the Mustangs net. His teammates played well in front of him. UNB didn't get their forecheck really going until the third period. Then the game couldn't end soon enough for Western as UNB poured it on, got the sold-out crowd behind them, and finally got a couple of power play goals (with one thanks to a broken stick that went their way for once) past Unice to draw within a goal. Afterward no one could explain why it took the V-Reds so long to find their normal explosive energy or why they were waiting for a "spark", their first goal. Trust me, it will be beaten to death and beyond by fans in Fredericton who have become spoiled by recent wins.

The morning game was highly entertaining, especially since three teams' fates hung in the balance. Saskatchewan had the huge task of having to win by six goals to advance to the championship. McGill controlled their destiny and only had to win, and could even afford to lose by one or two goals. The fun part was that if Saskatchewan won by three, four or five goals then they would be doing Moncton a favour and send les Aigles Bleus to Sunday's game.

The Huskies scored first, and the pro-Moncton (Maritimes unity!) crowd got excited. McGill replied. It went this way most of the game. Francis Verreault-Paul pretty much put the Redmen attack on his back, while Ryan Holfeld was strong in the Saskatchewan net. The Huskies were never able to get a two-goal lead to make it really interesting and put some panic in the Redmen. Saskatchewan played with pride, and captain Kyle Ross was able to end his CIS career with a game winning goal.

Tonight we are guaranteed an OUA team as CIS champs for the first time since 2003. Either Western wins their second-ever University Cup or McGill their first.

Michel Belanger provides the CIS game stories:

GAME 3 POOL B: Redmen return to final despite loss
GAME 3 POOL A: Mustangs stun UNB, join McGill in final

The Brunswickan has been providing great coverage of the University Cup. Their stuff is here. Their crew has been very active on Twitter, and I've been including that content in our liveblogs.
Join us this afternoon for our liveblog of the sixth game of the 2012 Cavendish University Cup, the final game of pool A, as the host University of New Brunswick Varsity Reds and Western Mustangs battle to advance to Sunday's championship versus the McGill Redmen.

Puck drop is 7:00 pm ADT (6:00 am EDT). The game will be webcast on ssncanada.ca and on radio on CHSR-FM 97.9 in Fredericton (and audiocast at chsrfm.ca) as well on most of the Rogers Sportsnet channels.
Join us this morning for our liveblog of the fifth game of the 2012 Cavendish University Cup, the final game of pool B, as the University of Saskatchewan Huskies try to keep their tournament alive as they face the McGill Redmen. A McGill win puts them into Sunday's championship game, while if the Huskies win by three, four or five goals then the Université de Moncton Aigles Bleus get second life. Saskatchewan has to win by six goals to advance.

Puck drop is 11:30 am ADT (10:30 am EDT). The game will be webcast on ssncanada.ca and on radio on CHSR-FM 97.9 in Fredericton (and audiocast at chsrfm.ca).

Temperatures were back to normal in Fredericton, ice conditions were good, and we had a surprisingly lopsided game to start the day, followed by the most exciting game so far at the 2012 Cavendish University Cup to close off the evening.

Once again, the CIS had comprehensive stories (with video clips) on the Moncton 5-1 win over Saskatchewan and the Western 3-2 overtime win vs. UQTR. I expected UdeM's P.A. Marion to bounce back and be more like the goalie that stoned the Saint Mary's Huskies, and after giving up a goal on the Huskies' first shot he shut the door the rest of the way. UofS were surprisingly flat in the first and third periods and their top line was near invisible. Les Aigles Bleus for their part rebounded nicely from that loss to McGill and played their game. Major W.J. "Danny" MacLeod, founder of the University Cup and an honoured special guest at this year's 50th edition of the tournament, summed it up nicely in today's Daily Gleaner:
“What I’ve seen to date, the two teams that have stood out for me are McGill and the Varsity Reds,” he said. “Don’t discount that Moncton club, because they play an NHL-style game. They’re tough and rough, and they’ve earned their stuff back as of today. I think of Saskatchewan and Moncton, the Huskies had the speed, they had the stick handling, but they were out muscled.”
With the win, les Aigles gave themselves some life, and captain Dean Ouellet said they'd be saying their prayers for a Huskies win against McGill this morning. If the Redmen win, or only lose by one or two goals, they advance to Sunday's championship game. However if the Huskies win by three, four or five goals the CIS tie-breaking system would advance Moncton to Sunday. Saskatchewan need to win by six goals if they hope to keep playing. Improbable, but not impossible.

The evening game saw another rebound game by a team that lost on opening day. UQTR had a dominant first period, but Western's Josh Unice made 21 saves to keep the teams tied at one. The teams traded goal in the second period, there were none in the third, and then Julian Cimadamore got the overtime winner at 4:21 with a wrister from the top of the left circle after taking a sweet pass from Steve Reese. Les Patriotes probably deserved a better fate, playing so well while Unice stood on his head at the other end of the ice, but the University Cup can be a cruel tournament.

This morning's McGill-Saskatchewan game starts at 11:30 am ADT (10:30 am EDT), and we'll have the liveblog up here on the CISblog and you can watch the game on ssncanada.ca. This afternoon's UNB-Western game at 4:30 pm ADT (3:30 pm EDT) will be carried live in most of Canada on Rogers Sportsnet as well as SSN.

I'll post more links to the tournament coverage here later today.
Join us this evening for our liveblog of the fourth game of the 2012 Cavendish University Cup, as the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières Patriotes try to rebound against rested OUA rival Western Mustangs.

Puck drop is 7:00 pm ADT (6:00 pm EDT). The game will be webcast on ssncanada.ca and on radio on CHSR-FM 97.9 in Fredericton (and audiocast at chsrfm.ca).

Join us this afternoon for our liveblog of the third game of the 2012 Cavendish University Cup, as the Université de Moncton Aigles Blues try to bounce back in a must-win game against the rested University of Saskatchewan Huskies.

Puck drop is 2:00 pm ADT (1:00 pm EDT). The game will be webcast on ssncanada.ca and on radio on CHSR-FM 97.9 in Fredericton (and audiocast at chsrfm.ca).

The players, fans and media survived record-setting temperatures in Fredericton (27C!) that made for increasingly worse ice conditions as the day played out. It didn't help that there were sellout crowds of 3750 for both games, and every time the fans stepped out of the Aitken University Centre at the intermissions they just allowed more hot air into the building.

Michel Belanger produced the CIS game stories on the McGill-UdeM afternoon game and the UNB-UQTR evening game, so I won't bother repeating his excellent coverage.

In summary, Moncton learned a hard lesson about taking strong physical play over the edge to undisciplined penalties, and those two goals on both ends of the 5-on-3 power play by McGill had les Aigles Blues in a hole they never got out of, even with their strong push-back second period. The Redmen capitalized on every Moncton mistake, and two bad giveaways in the second unfortunately ended up behind P.A. Marion and pretty much squashed their comeback attempt.

Patriotes head coach Jacques Laporte said it succinctly, "They're a big machine." UNB rolled over and through UQTR with a strong forecheck right off the hop. Daine Todd proved, again, how much a big-game player he is by sliding into the injured Shayne Wiebe's spot on the right side of V-Reds' top line and coming away with two goals and a assist and UNB player of the game honours. The turning point of the game was probably at 11:15 of the second period when the V-Reds had to kill off a two-minute 5-on-3 situation with UQTR in their zone the whole time. And then as the penalties ended Travis Fullerton made a jaw-dropping save on Pierre-Luc Lessard that earned him a standing ovation from the partisan crowd.

UNBHockeyFans.com has all sorts of game tee-up stuff that you should read today.

Vreds.ca continues to re-post Daily Gleaner stories that are normally behind their paywall:
Nationals turned into learning opportunity by Jamie Ross
V-Reds off on the right foot  by Bruce Hallihan
Bailey richly deserving of all the accolades Bill Hunt's weekly column and a must-read

Darren Zary made the trip from Saskatoon and is filing for PostMedia: V-Reds, Redmen win CIS openers

Doug MacLean nearly stole the show at the Wednesday media conference to open the 2012 Cavendish University Cup as he was asked to introduce each of the six coaches. Not near as rigid as past formats, and for some reason all sorts of jokes between the coaches and MacLean about the Leafs and Brian Burke (not that MacLean necessarily wants the Leafs job, but he would be open to a new job in the NHL ...). Coaches. Always talking about other guys' jobs. There was lots of media there as well, as this tournament is a big deal in Fredericton, and New Brunswick.

Left to right: McGill's Kelly Nobes, UNB's Gardiner MacDougall, UdeM's Serge Bourgeois, UQTR's Jacques Laporte, Western's Clarke Singer and UofS's Dave Adolph
The CIS has posted a recap of last night's awards ceremony from the very warm Fredericton Playhouse (record temperatures and hockey don't mix!). The host AUS did surprisingly well with the major awards as Acadia's Andrew Clark earned Player of the Year, UNB's Kyle Bailey picked up the Randy Gregg Award and UdeM's Serge Bourgeois got the nod as coach of the year. MacLean ("no, I'm not Ron") was the guest speaker and scored well with a partisan crowd. He made a point of saying that he got the greatest thrill watching his son playing NCAA Div. I hockey, and how he now understands hockey parents who only see their kid when watching the game.

There's lots of coverage in today's Daily Gleaner, via the vreds.ca website: 
V-Red honoured for contributions on and off the ice
UNB's Fullerton gets another Golden opportunity  (actually a Moncton Times-Transcript story published in the Gleaner)
UNB job led to NHL gig for MacLean
Bailey, Bourgeois, Clark win major awards 
V-Reds without Wiebe for the nationals

And as always, the gang over at UNBHockeyfans.com has tons of stuff as well.

And Steve Knowles , CIS stats guy and chair of the Top 10 committee, prepared a piece on the 50th anniversary of the University Cup.
Join us this evening for our liveblog of the second game of the 2012 Cavendish University Cup, as the host University of New Brunswick Varsity Reds faceoff against Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières Patriotes.

Puck drop is 7:00 pm ADT (6:00 pm EDT). The game will be webcast on ssncanada.ca and on radio on CHSR-FM 97.9 in Fredericton (and audiocast at chsrfm.ca).


Join us this afternoon for our liveblog of the first game of the 2012 Cavendish University Cup, as the McGill Redmen faceoff against Université de Moncton Aigles Bleus. Puck drop is 2:00 pm ADT (1:00 pm EDT).

The game will be webcast on ssncanada.ca and on radio on CHSR-FM 97.9 in Fredericton (and audiocast at chsrfm.ca).



How time flies. The 50th anniversary of the University Cup is upon us already. Sorry, make that the Cavendish University Cup presented by Home Depot. The next two years in Saskatoon it will be the PotashCorp University Cup. Corporate branding, gotta love it since it pays the bills.

Events kick off today with the traditional lunchtime media conference and then the awards ceremony this evening. Sportnet's Doug MacLean, who coached UNB in 1985-86 before moving onto the bright lights of the NHL, will be tonight's guest speaker. The real fun starts tomorrow with McGill-UdeM at 2:00 pm ADT and UNB-UQTR at 7:00 pm.

So how can you follow the University Cup? Well, if you're in Fredericton and can't get/afford a ticket, there is a beer tent with a big screen in the parking lot closest to the Aitken University Centre. All of the games will be webcast on ssncanada.ca. Long-time broadcaster Dave Ritchie is returning to call all the games on CHSR-FM 97.9, and they will also be audiocasting the games and intermissions on chsrfm.ca. I'll be helping out with the radio games as well as co-hosting a liveblog for each game with Christopher Cameron, editor of the UNB student paper The Brunswickan, here on CISBlog.ca. Rogers Sportsnet will be broadcasting the second Saturday game (4:30 pm ADT) and the championship game on Sunday (8:00 pm ADT). And a local firm has developed a free cell phone app at www.2012univcup.com.

My goal is to provide a daily notebook, plus link to the some of the media coverage of the event to save readers some time. My previous post had all the schedule information.

The CIS has prepared a great University Cup preview, with all sorts of facts and stats which you can read here.

The local newspaper, The Daily Gleaner, is now behind a paywall but many of their stories are being reprinted on the vreds.ca website:
 There is a special University Cup pull-out section in today's Bruns, and you can read their stories here.

And lastly, for now, the hockey geeks over at UNBHockeyFans.com have tons of University Cup stuff, albeit with an understandable UNB bias.
Two relatively interesting semifinals provided the entertainment Sunday night.

  • Ottawa/UBC — predicted a 67-63 UBC win. Actual result: UBC 59, Ottawa 51. Not quite a game for the ages (you kind of need overtime or a Stu Turnbull Special for that), but just about as good as you could ask for, between two very good teams.

    It was tied at 49 with 4:35 left but the Gee-Gees would only make one more shot the rest of the way. Both sides were making some questionable passing decisions near the end — though obviously the results of those five minutes dictate that Ottawa U made most of them.

    In fact, for Ottawa, there were more than a few instances where they were pressured outside and put up a bad three-pointer (they were 5/20 on those) or tried a cross-court pass only to see Kris Young spontaneously materialize and take it the other way. One particularly unfortunately-timed turnover by Kellie Ring sticks in the mind, though it apparently didn't make the play-by-play so I may be misremembering.

  • Windsor/Calgary — predicted a 72-58 Windsor win. Actual result: Windsor 81, Calgary 71.

    Back in my days at Waterloo, they would request that you stand and clap until the home side scored their first basket in each half. (They probably still do this, but there's no evidence anyone attends Waterloo games so I can't be sure.) It was supposed to encourage the Warriors to score, a motivator not unlike those little rings engineers need to wear so they're reminded to do their jobs properly, but invariably the team would choose these exact time periods to waste lots of possessions throwing the ball vaguely netwards. They'd be outscored 12-0 and eventually make the fans give up and sit down or risk clapping their hands raw.

    I may be exaggerating for effect. The point is: the beginning of this game was just as bad as that. Calgary didn't make a field goal for the first six and a half minutes.

    Aside from that, neither side really had a problem putting points on the board: in the second half, when things were mostly already squared away, the teams combined for an effective 63% (no, really), featuring some "NBA all-star game"-level defence. Regardless, the opening 17-4 deficit was just too much for the Dinos to come back from.

    Upset over Regina or no, this one goes to show you that the preceding 33 games also matter when trying to figure out how well a team will do in their next game. The Lancers were a +20 team this year in a league where the average team scored 65.5 per game. That's the equivalent of +23.7 for a men's team (in a higher scoring environment) and only the Carleton Ravens topped that mark. In basketball you often have to make bad shots, because you only have 24 seconds and eventually someone has to put the ball in the air. Windsor, however, ignores these previously-immutable rules of basketball and just passes it around quickly and crisply four times until the defence is trying to rotate in eight directions at once.

Final: 7:00pm MT

SeedTeamW-LOddsRPISRS
2UBC26-3
43%
2nd
+15.9
4Windsor33-4
57%
3rd
+19.8

It's the third-straight appearance in the national final for these Lancers, and their third different opponent. The first time they lost to a basically undefeated, powerhouse Simon Fraser team. Last year they won against Saskatchewan.

UBC won the Bronze Baby in 2008, with both Alex Vieweg and Zara Huntley seeing time in the 67-46 win (five points in a combined 22 minutes).

Previous meetings: None.

UBC's previous starting lineup: Alex Vieweg (ranked 21st), Kristen Hughes (137), Kris Young (9), Zara Huntley (20), Leigh Stansfield (96)

Windsor's previous starting lineup: Iva Peklova (ranked 136th), Jessica Clémençon (4), Miah-Marie Langlois (6), Emily Abbott (287), Bojana Kovacevic (15)

Prediction: Windsor 69, UBC 64
The big news, of course, is the Dinos' upset of No. 1 Regina. Let's go through yesterday's games (and see just how badly that result screwed up the predictions):

  • UBC/McGill — predicted a 66-58 UBC win. Actual result: UBC 65, McGill 43. A pretty bad day for the Martlets, who made only 11 baskets (11/60, but 15/17 from the line to at least put them in the 40s). Odds are, you'll have a game like this in the first round, so it's not surprising they put this one in the earliest slot.

  • Saskatchewan/Ottawa — predicted a 69-61 Ottawa win. Actual result: Ottawa 73, Saskatchewan 70 (OT). This was, I'll admit, the only game I watched, and it looks like I chose right. Granted, it didn't look like the right choice at the half (Saskatchewan was up 16) but that turnover thing mattered: it seemed like every time Saskatchewan tried to score near the end, they couldn't bring the ball past halfcourt without having the ball stolen. In fact, they turned it over 24 times yesterday on an estimated 87 possessions (including three times in the last three minutes of the fourth quarter). That's 27%. That's bad.

    Do you think the fine people at the Star-Phoenix are aware there is a tournament going on? Presumably they are, because they have this on their website, and they've had previous (quite good) coverage of all things Huskies. Yet while "U of S at nationals" managed to fight off other contenders in the Top Newsworthy Events on a Saturday in Saskatoon category and find its way into the (online) paper, it did so at the expense of the "spell the name of the leading scorer correctly" rule that most human persons attempt to follow. The last 'y' is left off Hannah Sunley-Paisley's name twice. (Yes, I know why that is, because the boxscore has her listed that way, but someone vaguely familiar with CIS basketball might have realized that's not how you spell the player of the year's name.)

  • Acadia/Windsor — predicted a 73-65 Windsor win. Actual result: Windsor 94, Acadia 46. There aren't many teams who will lose by 59 points one week and then win by 48 two weeks later. This was pretty much over by the first quarter break. Everyone got into the game for the Lancers, and I mean literally everyone, because you can only dress 12 players.

    Acadia shot 0 of 13 on threes, so if they had merely shot their season average against Windsor then they would have scored about 15 more points. They'd still be 35 short, of course...

  • Regina/Calgary — predicted a 79-67 Regina win. Actual result: Calgary 75, Regina 66. The Cougars were within three in the second quarter, down 22-19, and then on their next 14 possessions ... well, before I tell you what happened, just remember this is a Cougars team that scored 104 points per 100 possessions during the regular season ... anyway, on their next 14 possessions before the half, they scored just two points, turning it over five times and grabbing only one of the eight rebounds on their own missed shots. And all of a sudden it was 41-22. Under normal offensive circumstances for Regina, that score would have been 41-36, but instead it added up to a first-round loss for the top-seeded team — the fourth time that's happened since 2006.

    The Dinos, who finished third in their own division, are now the only team remaining from that division. This is the first time in five years we'll have a Final 8 without Regina or Saskatchewan in the semifinals.


The updated tournament odds (based on updated rankings through yesterday's games) look like this:

Team
Then
Now
Change
Windsor
18.2%
44.5%
+26
UBC
20.1%
28.0%
+8
Ottawa
12.0%
18.2%
+6
Calgary
3.2%
9.3%
+6
McGill
2.1%
0.0%
-2
Saskatchewan
5.4%
0.0%
-5
Acadia
6.5%
0.0%
-6
Regina
32.3%
0.0%
-32

In other words, that Calgary win was worth a quarter of a Bronze Baby to Windsor. Not knowing what will happen today in their late semifinal, of course.


Speaking of the semifinals...


Semifinal 1: 5:00pm MT
SeedTeamW-LOddsRPISRSGame odds
2UBC25-3
28%
3rd
+15.8
57%
3Ottawa30-6
18%
4th
+13.9
43%

Previous meetings: none.

Ottawa's previous starting lineup: Jenna Gilbert (ranked 28th), Hannah Sunley-Paisley (3), Bess Lennox (34), Teddi Firmi (341), Kellie Ring (51)

UBC's previous starting lineup: Alex Vieweg (21), Kristen Hughes (137), Kris Young (9), Zara Huntley (20), Leigh Stansfield (96)

Prediction: UBC 67, Ottawa 63



Semifinal 2: 7:00pm MT
SeedTeamW-LOddsRPISRSGame odds
4Windsor32-4
45%
2nd
+19.9
74%
8Calgary20-13
9%
11th
+7.5
26%

Previous meetings: Windsor 76, Calgary 64 (Oct. 28)

Windsor's previous starting lineup: Iva Peklova (ranked 136th), Jessica Clémençon (4), Miah-Marie Langlois (6), Emily Abbott (287), Bojana Kovacevic (15)

Calgary's previous starting lineup: Jessica Franz (69), Megan Lang (97), Tamara Jarrett (59), Alex Cole (58), Jenna Kaye (7)

Prediction: Windsor 72, Calgary 58
Here's our game-by-game look at Saturday's quarterfinals in the 2012 women's basketball Final 8. Another post will follow on Sunday morning ahead of the two semifinal games.

"Odds" and "Game odds" mean the odds of winning the tournament and of winning this game, respectively. W-L record, RPI, and SRS are available here. "Top 100 players" refers to our player rankings. "Previous meetings" refers only to this year and includes non-conference and playoff games; it seems three of these matchups have not happened in at least a few years. The predicted score is based on each team's offensive and defensive ratings (points per 100 possessions), pace factor (possessions used per game), and SRS.

The average RPI rank among Final 8 teams is 6th, and the average SRS is +12.1. For those who care about such things, the top 10 teams (in either RPI or SRS) who are not at the tournament, along with their reasons for elimination, are:
  • Carleton (SRS +11.4, 8th in RPI) — Lost OUA semifinal to Windsor and OUA bronze to Brock.

  • UFV (SRS +10.2, 9th in RPI) — Lost CW semifinal to Regina, CW bronze to Saskatchewan, and East regional semifinal to Ottawa.

  • Cape Breton (SRS +9.7, 7th in RPI) — Lost AUS final to Acadia and East regional semifinal to Windsor.

  • Alberta (SRS +8.8, 10th in RPI) — Lost CW quarterfinal series to UBC.
(The other team to advance to a regional, Brock, finished 12th in SRS with +6.3 and 11th in RPI.)


Quarterfinal 1: 12:00pm MT
SeedTeamW-LOddsRPISRSGame odds
2UBC24-3
20.1%
3rd
+15.3
73.0%
7McGill17-11
2.4%
13th
+5.0
27.0%

It's the only first-round matchup between conference champions, but UBC is still nearly an even shot to win not only this game but their next as well (44% chance of advancing to Monday's final).

McGill's chances of winning this tournament, on the other hand, are the lowest among all teams here (less than one in 40). Part of that, though, is their exhibition schedule bringing them down: they played ten games, but only one was on the road (so they couldn't rack up road wins) and just four of them were against top 10 opponents (so their strength of schedule couldn't increase that much).

It's certainly possible that they could beat better teams, had they played them; we just don't have the evidence so far to indicate that. (The effective field-goal percentage of just 43% doesn't help, either.)

Top 100 players from UBC: Kris Young (9), Zara Huntley (20), Alex Vieweg (21), Leigh Stansfield (96)

Top 100 players from McGill: Françoise Charest (84)

Previous meetings: none.

Prediction: UBC 66, McGill 58



Quarterfinal 2: 2:00pm MT
SeedTeamW-LOddsRPISRSGame odds
3Ottawa29-6
12.0%
5th
+14.1
59.3%
6Saskatchewan24-8
5.4%
6th
+7.8
40.7%

The closest game of the first round, and it's good they moved this tournament to a Sat-Sun-Mon format because having these teams play in a Friday afternoon dead slot would be unfortunate.

The Gee-Gees will pretty much get all the rebounds: they picked up 45% of available rebounds on their offensive glass (best in the country) and nearly 74% defensively (seventh-best).

Now that I've said it'll be a close one, I can't help but look at those rebound numbers, and at Saskatchewan's defence (87 points against per 100 possessions, 42% effective field-goal percentage against) and turnover rate, and think there's serious potential for things to go wrong for the Huskies here. For the sake of having close games I hope I'm wrong.

Top 100 players from Ottawa: Hannah Sunley-Paisley (3), Jenna Gilbert (28), Bess Lennox (34), Kellie Ring (51)

Top 100 players from Saskatchewan: Dalyce Emmerson (10), Katie Miyazaki (13), Kelsey Trulsrud (87), Kabree Howard (95)

Previous meetings: none.

Prediction: Ottawa 69, Saskatchewan 61




Quarterfinal 3: 5:00pm MT
SeedTeamW-LOddsRPISRSGame odds
4Windsor31-4
18.2%
2nd
+19.4
62.7%
5Acadia19-13
6.5%
4th
+10.4
37.3%

Funny how things work. Acadia's seeding in this tournament was probably more well-received than the Axemen's No. 8 seed and first-round date with Carleton last week ... but, really, the Axewomen are also playing the defending champion after having won the AUS championship.

True, Windsor didn't dominate the league this year like the Carleton men did (nobody could ... except Carleton from now on, I suppose), but given that this Acadia team finished 4th overall in RPI with an SRS above +10, and the men's team was merely 13th entering last weekend with an SRS of +5.9, you could argue that the women's team deserves this matchup even less than the men did.

In any case, this is certainly an offensively-stacked Windsor team, but did you know the Axewomen actually have the best Offensive Rating in the country, at 108 points scored per 100 possessions to Windsor's 105? (CBU is second at 107.) I did not. And with three of the top 10 players in this game (or eight of the top 33, even), it's definitely one to watch.

Top 100 players from Windsor: Jessica Clémençon (4), Miah-Marie Langlois (6), Bojana Kovacevic (15), Korissa Williams (33)

Top 100 players from Acadia: Emma Duinker (8), Kristy Moore (23), Abbey Duinker (26), Stefanie Chapman (32), Jasmine Parent (91)

Previous meetings: none.

Prediction: Windsor 73, Acadia 65




Quarterfinal 4: 7:00pm MT
SeedTeamW-LOddsRPISRSGame odds
1Regina31-4
32.3%
1st
+17.9
76.4%
8Calgary19-13
3.2%
12th
+6.8
23.6%

Closer than it appears at first glance — the home-court advantage gives the Dinos about a three- or four-point boost, or about five points of winning percentage — but ultimately the most one-sided game in the first round. Still, even if there are no 50-50 games here, there are also no 90-10 games (or even 80-20), an indicator of the even set of quarterfinals we have.

It's good that the men's rule about conference-mates not meeting in the first round doesn't apply here (or, at least, it was relaxed in this case). With Regina and UBC at 1 and 2, you'd need to push both Calgary and Saskatchewan to sixth or higher, which would give either Windsor or Ottawa the 7 seed — a worse outcome than two CW teams playing in the quarterfinals.

The Dinos do a lot of things well, but they turn the ball over nearly a quarter of the time. How bad is that? There were only five teams with a higher turnover rate than Calgary this year (Waterloo, RMC, Manitoba, Laurentian, Brandon) and they combined for a 10-120 overall record.

Also, the Cougars don't do anything wrong.

Top 100 players from Regina: Michelle Clark (22), Joanna Zalesiak (37), Lindsay Ledingham (42), Brittany Read (63), Danielle Schmidt (70), Carly Graham (94)

Top 100 players from Calgary: Jenna Kaye (7), Alex Cole (58), Tamara Jarrett (59), Jessica Franz (69), Megan Lang (97)

Previous meetingsRegina 87, Calgary 80 (Oct. 29); Regina 69, Calgary 54 (Nov. 18); Regina 84, Calgary 67 (Nov. 19).

Prediction: Regina 79, Calgary 67
Last year, we looked at a handful of players from the B.C., Alberta, and Atlantic college leagues whose statistics suggested they could contribute at the CIS level (see here, here, and here). Now that the 2012 CCAA nationals are upon us, it's time to go prospecting again. Today we look at nine women's players from ACACOCAA, and ACAA schools.

Every category — from shooting percentages to rebounds to steals to percentage of shots taken that are three-pointers to usage rate — is projected based on historical averages for players going from one level to the next in consecutive years. With eight more players actually making the jump last year, we now have the equivalent of about 4,000 minutes from players who have played CCAA one year and CIS the next. (We'd have the entire UBC Okanagan team if the B.C. league made their women's stats available, hint-hint.) All these CCAA-to-CIS players are the basis for our assumptions about the relative level of the two leagues: for example, if three-point percentage tends to drop by 10% among these players on average, that's the translation we apply to everyone's college stats. Obviously there are several factors we're not accounting for, and 4,000 minutes is really only one full team-season of play at the CIS level, but this does serve as a handy way to identify the standouts among hundreds of CCAA players across the country, and to (for lack of a better word) ignore those whose overall game might not translate to the CIS level.

Minutes played are projected this year for the first time, though projecting playing time is generally an even more foolish thing to do than projecting rate stats, and so those numbers should not be taken seriously. The per-game statistics assume each player appears in 20 games; the projected season stats are therefore simply divided by 20 for everyone. Minutes for OCAA players had to be calculated from each individual boxscore, since seasonal information was not available on the OCAA player profiles. (This is progress: last year they provided shots made but not shots taken.) And some schools had impossibly low numbers of minutes played, which meant we had to adjust the minutes up for everyone to match how many games that team played — noted with * where adjusted.

Also note that these stats are a few weeks out of date for those who have had playoff games, but include earlier non-conference play.

More information on the methodology can be found here.

Eligibility years are as of 2012-13, so "2nd year" means she just completed her first. All years I could find are included, but the projection depends only on '11-12. Listed heights are taken from, in order of preference, rosters, media reports, or wild guesses.

And finally, as always, remember this is not a substitute for recruiting insight. In most (all?) cases we know nothing about these players aside from a stat line and a roster bio, and are making no value judgement beyond that which is visible in a boxscore.

With all of that out of the way, here are the nine players:

--

Jessilyn Fairbanks
5-6 guard, 2nd year, Grant MacEwan University
Season
Conf
Year
Minutes
Per Game
Per 40
eFG%UsagePER
PTSREBASTBLKSTLPTSREB
2011-12
ACAC
1st
407
11.8
2.4
2.5
0.3
2.8
23.1
4.6
54.0%
23.1%
40.3
2012-13
CIS
2nd
350
6.5
1.5
1.5
0.1
2.0
14.9
3.5
49.8%
20.6%
21.2

Very few college players have a projected CIS PER above 20, and fewer still are just one year out of high school.

Highly-recruited out of Edmonton's Harry Ainlay, Fairbanks is now playing for Ainlay's former coach at Grant Mac, perhaps part of the reason she didn't go CIS right away. Aside from not starting half of MacEwan's games, which could be due to some bad data entry, her stats show no sign of nagging injury from her knee surgery in April 2009 2010. She had the second-highest eFG% in Alberta and the best assist-to-turnover ratio.

Oh, and a PER of 40.3. As a rookie.




Brittany Gilliss
5-6 guard, 2nd year, St. Thomas University
Season
Conf
Year
Minutes
Per Game
Per 40
eFG%UsagePER
PTSREBASTBLKSTLPTSREB
2011-12
ACAA
1st
421
11.7
4.3
1.8
0.1
1.5
22.1
8.1
53.7%
20.9%
35.8
2012-13
CIS
2nd
362
6.7
2.8
1.1
0.0
1.1
14.7
6.1
50.0%
18.6%
20.4

Okay, so we have two rookies with projected PERs above 20.

Gilliss, whose last name is ripe for what they call a reverse Nicklas Grossmann*, was ACAA rookie of the year, and is one of six players listed here who will be at CCAA nationals this week.

I'm not entirely sure on the Atlantic projections (most of the players who form the baseline for these translations were Alberta-to-Canada West) and seeing that STU's opponents shot around 30% makes me wonder if we shouldn't adjust ACAA-based projections down a bit more.

* They do not call it that.




Sandre Bascoe
5-11 forward, 4th year, Algonquin College
Season
Conf
Year
Minutes
Per Game
Per 40
eFG%UsagePER
PTSREBASTBLKSTLPTSREB
2011-12
OCAA
3rd
421
16.1
9.8
2.2
0.4
4.0
24.5
14.9
50.5%
29.9%
38.6
2012-13
CIS
4th
362
7.5
5.1
1.1
0.2
2.4
16.6
11.3
47.9%
26.6%
24.5

If you're wondering, it's not a typo: both Bascoe and Gilliss played 421 minutes, and both receive the same discounting (about 14%) down to 362.

On the one hand, 24.5 is a great PER, and it's hard to ignore. On the other hand, it's almost too good, and since it's really hard to expect a player to post that number, how confident can we be in it? And for the purposes of this projection we have to assume ACAC competition is the same as OCAA. Same issue as with Atlantic players, basically.

In any case, we're still only talking about two potential years for Bascoe here, not three or four as is the case with nearly every other player on this list.




Kelly Vass
5-6 guard, 2nd year, St. Thomas University
Season
Conf
Year
Minutes
Per Game
Per 40
eFG%UsagePER
PTSREBASTBLKSTLPTSREB
2011-12
ACAA
1st
423
10.1
3.9
2.5
0.0
3.8
21.1
8.1
49.0%
26.2%
33.4
2012-13
CIS
2nd
364
6.4
2.7
1.7
0.0
3.1
14.0
6.0
46.0%
23.3%
17.3

Nothing against the remaining players on the list, but we do have a drop-off in projected PER (for what that's worth), with most of the remaining players under 18.

I am running out of insightful things to say about basketball players I don't really know, so I will merely point out that a student who started college in 2011 was probably born in 1993. You're welcome.




Kelsey Lund
6-0 forward, 2nd year, University of Alberta - Augustana
Season
Conf
Year
Minutes
Per Game
Per 40
eFG%UsagePER
PTSREBASTBLKSTLPTSREB
2011-12
ACAC
1st
424*
14.3
8.7
0.4
0.9
1.3
26.9
16.4
45.4%
31.9%
39.0
2012-13
CIS
2nd
365
8.2
5.6
0.3
0.5
1.0
18.0
12.4
43.1%
28.3%
17.2

Lund's yet another player finishing her first year; she's also the third player on this list who made the ACAC North first-team all-stars, so it's not like we're identifying complete diamonds in the rough here.

Lund grabbed about 20% of all rebounds available when she was on the floor, and is unsurprisingly projected to average about 12 boards per 40 minutes in CIS. This helps make up for the shooting percentage (second-worst among these players).




Cameo McKerlie
5-10 forward, 3rd year, Lakeland College
Season
Conf
Year
Minutes
Per Game
Per 40
eFG%UsagePER
PTSREBASTBLKSTLPTSREB
2010-11
ACAC
1st
82
5.3
4.0
0.3
0.7
1.0
15.6
11.7
34.8%
27.1%
11.0
2011-12
ACAC
2nd
403
10.6
6.2
1.5
0.4
1.4
21.0
12.3
53.9%
19.9%
33.7
2012-13
CIS
3rd
347
5.9
3.9
0.9
0.2
1.0
13.7
9.0
50.6%
17.1%
18.5

This is a good example of how different skills are affected by the jump to CIS. Fairbanks' shooting is expected to drop quite a bit since almost half her shots come from beyond the arc, but McKerlie's inside game is more likely to translate, at least scoring-wise. (She actually scored slightly more points per shot than Fairbanks.)




Ashley Bawn
5-8 guard, 4th year, St. Thomas University
Season
Conf
Year
Minutes
Per Game
Per 40
eFG%UsagePER
PTSREBASTBLKSTLPTSREB
2009-10
ACAA
1st
184*
4.3
2.4
0.6
0.2
1.7
9.3
5.2
37.1%
15.1%
n/a
2010-11
ACAA
2nd
279
11.5
5.3
2.8
0.0
2.9
16.5
7.6
37.7%
21.1%
24.6
2011-12
ACAA
3rd
560
10.2
5.6
3.3
0.0
3.2
17.7
9.7
47.7%
19.3%
35.1
2012-13
CIS
4th
434
6.1
4.0
2.3
0.0
2.6
11.3
7.3
44.7%
16.6%
19.4

Lots of Tommies here, but they were conference champions who won by 39 points on average, so you kind of expect them to have all the conference's standouts. Bawn was a first-team conference all-star, and would be higher on this list if she had more than two years left.




Rachelle Abella
5-4 guard, 3rd year, Mohawk College
Season
Conf
Year
Minutes
Per Game
Per 40
eFG%UsagePER
PTSREBASTBLKSTLPTSREB
2011-12
OCAA
2nd
560
20.2
6.1
2.7
0.0
3.7
26.0
7.9
37.7%
34.1%
36.6
2012-13
CIS
3rd
482
9.9
3.5
1.5
0.0
2.5
16.5
5.8
35.2%
30.3%
16.2

Not much to say here, not because she isn't a good player (No. 2 in scoring in the province), but because she appears to be returning to Mohawk for another year. Abella sucked up a lot of possessions last year and almost certainly wouldn't have a usage rate that high in CIS. On the other hand, her touches would go down, the number of poor shots she's forced to take will decrease, and she won't be shooting in the 30s. Again, though, it's all academic if she stays in the OCAA.




Kristen Monasterski
6-1 forward, 4th year, Grant MacEwan University
Season
Conf
Year
Minutes
Per Game
Per 40
eFG%UsagePER
PTSREBASTBLKSTLPTSREB
2009-10
ACAC
1st
242
4.9
3.4
0.2
0.2
0.5
20.3
13.9
52.3%
5.7%
n/a
2010-11
ACAC
2nd
554
11.9
6.7
0.9
0.8
0.8
20.6
11.6
54.7%
13.6%
25.4
2011-12
ACAC
3rd
522
13.8
9.6
0.8
0.6
0.7
21.1
14.7
52.5%
24.3%
30.9
2012-13
CIS
4th
449
8.0
6.1
0.5
0.3
0.5
14.2
10.9
49.7%
21.6%
14.9

Our first player who made this list in both years, Monasterski hadn't decided as of January where she'd be in '12-13, but it seemed a foregone conclusion she'd be in CIS somewhere.

Ironically, now that she's looking to transfer, her translated CIS numbers are actually worse: compared to last year, her projected effective field goal percentage is down from 53.1% to 49.7%, and her projected PER is at 14.9 rather than 18.6.

UPDATE - Mar. 28: Monasterski's going to UVic.
The CIS has just sent out a media advisory with the 2012 Cavendish University Cup pool seedings and schedule, right when they said they would!

If you know the CIS regs, (UNBHockeyfans.com goes into it here) and looked at the final rankings released at lunch time, you can determine that the CIS went by the book in setting up the pools. There is one less TV game this year, as the first Saturday game has been pushed to a 11:30 am ADT start, and off television, so that the "evening" game can start at 4:30 pm ADT (3:30 pm EDT), which I guess was more television friendly for Sportsnet (by staying away from Hockey Night in Canada?). I wonder how well the body clocks of the Huskies players will be adjusted by Saturday morning!?

Pool A 
  • 1. UNB 
  • 4. Western 
  • 6. UQTR Pool 
 Pool B 
  • 2. McGill 
  • 3. Saskatchewan 
  • 5. Moncton 
TOURNAMENT SCHEDULE (Atlantic Time)

Wednesday, March 21
  • 12:45 Meet The Teams Media Conference (Aitken University Centre) 
  • 19:00 All-Canadian Awards Presentation (The Playhouse) 
 Thursday, March 22
  • 14:00 Pool B #1: McGill vs. Moncton (ssncanada.ca) 
  • 19:00 Pool A #1: UNB vs. UQTR (ssncanada.ca) 
 Friday, March 23
  • 14:00 Pool B #2: Loser Pool B #1 vs. Saskatchewan (ssncanada.ca) 
  • 19:00 Pool A #2: Loser Pool A #1 vs. Western (ssncanada.ca) 
 Saturday, March 24
  • 11:30 Pool B #3: Winner Pool B #1 vs. Saskatchewan (ssncanada.ca) 
  • 16:30 Pool A #3: Winner Pool A #1 vs. Western (Rogers Sportsnet / ssncanada.ca) * 
 Sunday, March 25
  • 20:00 University Cup Final (Rogers Sportsnet / ssncanada.ca) 
 Note: The last game of pool play (Saturday, 4:30 p.m. ADT) will air live on all Sportsnet stations, except on Sportsnet West, which will air the game on a tape delay at 8 p.m. Mountain.
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