ELMIRA, Ont. – With a convincing 5-1 win over the University of New Brunswick REDS Saturday at the Dan Snyder Memorial Arena, the UBC Thunderbirds have set up one final battle with the Alberta Pandas to close out the 2024-25 U SPORTS Women's Hockey season.
Sunday's battle with the Pandas will not be the hoped for gold medal game, but rather the national championship consolation final after the two Canada West rivals both failed to get through the quarter-finals but managed to bounce back with emphatic relegation wins on Saturday, Alberta getting past St. FX with a 3-0 shutout victory.
"Obviously they're a great team and it's going to be a great game but it's definitely a little shot at redemption," said UBC head coach
Graham Thomas, referencing his team's defeat at the hands of the Pandas in the Canada West Final. "It's a rematch we'd love to have to finish the season off. We're excited about that for sure."
In a much more typical start for the T-Birds compared to their quarter-final loss a day earlier, UBC came out of the gate Saturday with speed while looking composed and spending plenty of time in the offensive zone. That effort paid off at the 7:40 mark of the first when
Kailee Peppler's point shot got past New Brunswick goaltender Cassie McCallum to open scoring.
The REDS got into penalty trouble with UBC going to the power play four times in the opening period alone.
Kasundra Betinol made UNB pay, scoring her second of the tournament on the advantage when she popped home a
Grace Elliott rebound with two-and-a-half minutes left in the first.
Picking up right where they left off at the end of the opening frame,
Karine Sandilands expanded UBC's lead to 3-0 just 31 seconds into the second. The fourth-year forward deflected a
Kennesha Miswaggon point shot for her second of the tournament for the early added insurance.
The 'Birds continued to dominate puck possession throughout the period, outshooting the REDS by a 34-12 margin through 40 minutes.
Midway through the third New Brunswick got some life when Melanie Drost got the REDS on the board with a power play marker on what turned out to be their only shot out of 18 total to get past
Mya Lucifora who earned her first post-season win for the T-Birds.
UNB's rally lasted all of 47 seconds until
Makenzie McCallum restored UBC's three-goal advantage, deflecting a
Sophia Gaskell point shot.
Chanreet Bassi put the final icing on the cake at the 11:35 mark, sniping near-side, top corner for her first of the tournament.
In a game that nobody wants to end up playing in, the T-Birds responded well from Friday's overtime loss to Bishop's in order to give them one more crack at the Pandas on Sunday.
"Today's approach, it was just about taking the pressure off the outcome and just focussing on more the execution, more the intensity, playing for our seniors and playing for pride and representing our league and the university," said Thomas. "I'm really proud of the response today, we got to be happy with that and we got one more to go."
Puck drop for Sunday's consolation final is set for 10:00 a.m. ET/7:00 a.m. PT at the Dan Snyder Memorial Arena. The game will be available live on
CBC Sports' YouTube channel.
