Courtesy Canadian Interuniversity Sport
2011 CIS women’s hockey championship
McGill seeded No. 1 for 5th straight year
March 7, 2011
OTTAWA (CIS) – The McGill Martlets have been established pre-tournament favourites for the fifth straight year as they vie to return to the top of the Canadian Interuniversity Sport women’s hockey world this weekend in Waterloo, Ont.
Championship website: http://english.cis-sic.ca/championships/wice
The six-team CIS championship, hosted for the first time by Wilfrid Laurier University, gets under way Thursday and culminates Sunday at 7:30 p.m. with the gold medal final.
SSN Canada will have live webcasts of all nine games from the tourney.
Also competing for CIS supremacy this week will be the No. 2 St. Francis Xavier X-Women (AUS champions), No. 3 Manitoba Bisons (Canada West champions), No. 4 Queen’s Gaels (OUA champions), No. 5 Laurier Golden Hawks (host team), as well as the reigning national champions, the No. 6 Alberta Pandas (Canada West finalists).
Top-ranked McGill will compete in Pool A with Queen’s and Alberta in the round-robin portion of the championship. Pool B is comprised of StFX, Manitoba and Laurier.
The competition kicks off Thursday at 4 p.m. with McGill taking on Alberta in a rematch of the 2010 national final. The Pool B opener follows at 7:30 p.m. with StFX facing Laurier.
Queen’s and Manitoba take the ice Friday against the losers of the opening-day matchups.
The Martlets went into last year’s gold medal game riding a record 86-game overall winning streak against CIS opponents but were shut down by the Pandas, who prevailed 2-0 to capture their seventh all-time championship banner, the most by any team since women’s hockey was added to the CIS program in 1997-98.
The remarkable McGill win streak included back-to-back CIS titles in 2008 and 2009, the only ones in school history.
The Martlets look as strong as ever this season as they go into the championship tournament with an unblemished 30-0 mark versus CIS rivals. Goaltender Charline Labonté and head coach Peter Smith are back with the team after a one-year absence - during which they helped Canada claim gold at the Vancouver Olympics - and the perennial powerhouse has also added, among others, two-time Olympic champion Gillian Ferrari who joins former national team member Cathy Chartrand on the blueline.
Despite their status of defending champs, the Pandas go in as the No. 6 seed after being swept by Manitoba – 2-1 and 2-1 - in the best-of-three Canada West final.
The CIS major award winners and all-Canadians will be announced at a banquet Wednesday night.
NOTE: A complete championship preview will follow on Tuesday.
SEEDING & POOLS
1. McGill Martlets (RSEQ champions: 20-0-0 regular season / 4-0 playoffs)
2. St. Francis Xavier X-Women (AUS champions: 24-0-0 regular season / 3-0 playoffs)
3. Manitoba Bisons (CWUAA champions: 16-5-3 regular season / 4-0 playoffs)
4. Queen’s Gaels (OUA champions: 15-8-4 regular season / 5-0 playoffs)
5. Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks (Host team: 24-2-1 regular season / 0-2 playoffs)
6. Alberta Pandas (CWUAA finalists: 17-4-3 regular season / 2-2 playoffs)
Pool A
1. McGill
4. Queen’s
6. Alberta
Pool B
2. StFX
3. Manitoba
5. Laurier
CHAMPIONSHIP SCHEDULE
NOTE 1: All games webcast live by SSN Canada on http://english.cis-sic.ca/championships/wice
NOTE 2: All games at Waterloo Memorial Recreational Complex
Wednesday, March 9
12:00 Meet the Teams media conference (Delta Kitchener-Waterloo Hotel)
18:00 All-Canadian Banquet (Turret Lounge – Wilfrid Laurier University)
Thursday, March 10
16:00 Pool A #1: No. 6 Alberta vs. No. 1 McGill
19:30 Pool B #1: No. 5 Laurier vs. No. 2 StFX
Friday, March 11
16:00 Pool A #2: Loser Pool A #1 vs. No. 4 Queen’s
19:30 Pool B #2: Loser Pool B #1 vs. No. 3 Manitoba
Saturday, March 12
16:00 Pool A #3: Winner Pool A #1 vs. No. 4 Queen’s
19:30 Pool B #3: Winner Pool B #1 vs. No. 3 Manitoba
Sunday, March 13
12:00 5th Place
16:00 Bronze
19:30 Final
About Canadian Interuniversity Sport
Canadian Interuniversity Sport is the national governing body of university sport in Canada. Fifty-one universities, 10,000 student-athletes and 550 coaches vie for 21 national championships in 12 different sports. CIS also provides high performance international opportunities for Canadian student-athletes at Winter and Summer Universiades, as well as numerous world university championships. For further information, visit www.cis-sic.ca.
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