U of Calgary men, U of T women participate in the University Cup hockey tournaments at the top

The Calgary Dinos’ playoff run for the Canada West (CW) men’s hockey title hasn’t been as squeaky clean as their regular season.

A regular season that included a record 23-game winning streak, but a pair of 2-1 wins over the Saskatchewan Huskies and Alberta Golden Bears was more than enough to secure the No. 1 seed in this weekend’s 2023 University Cup.

Moncton was dispatched in a four-game sweep by eventual Australian champion UNB Reds, who enter the tournament seeded third, drawing the Ontario University (OUA) bronze medalist Concordia Stingers in a quarterfinal match.

Last year’s champion U Sports Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR) Patriotes earned the No. 2 seed in the tournament after knocking off Concordia in the OUA semifinals before topping the Windsor Lancers in the Queen’s Cup thanks to Felix Lauzon’s triple winner -OT.

The Patriotes will open the tournament Thursday against No. 7 Saint Mary’s, while the No. 4-seed Lancers will face the nation’s top offense in the form of the CW finalist Golden Bears on Friday.

All events, including the upcoming women’s hockey and men’s and women’s volleyball championships, will be streamed live on CBCSports.ca, CBC Gem and the free CBC Sports app.

After being upset by the Nipissing Lakers in the 2022 OUA East Final, the Toronto Varsity Blues women’s hockey team appears on a mission to secure its first national title since 2001.

The No. 1-seed in this year’s U Sports women’s hockey championship that begins Thursday in Montreal completed another first-place regular season (23-2-2) with a 2-1 win over the Lakers on Saturday in the OUA Cup Final McCaw, and will draw the No. 8 Mount Royal Cougars.

The stingy Thunderbirds were named the No. 2-seed and will play U Sports leading scorer Maggy Burbidge’s StFX X-Women on Friday.

Two-time defending Australian champions UNB Reds are in fourth place, drawing hosts Montreal Carabins who lost 2-1 in the RSEQ final series to defending champions U Sports Concordia Stingers.

The No. 3 Stingers will close out Friday night’s quarterfinal matchup against the No. 6 Lakers in a rematch of last year’s final that Concordia won 4-0, with 25 saves from now-fourth goalie Alice Philbert.

Also starting Friday in Vancouver will be the U Sports Women’s Volleyball Championship, where the Trinity Western Spartans capped a 22-2 season with a CW title over last year’s U Sports finalist and this year’s No. 3 Mount Royal.

The Spartans will look to defend their national title in an eight-team field that includes the OUA champion Brock Badgers, the RSEQ champion UQAM Citadins and the AUS champion Dalhousie Tigers — the latter two of which will open the tournament at 4 p.m. . ET.

The Alberta Golden Bears men’s team, which also had a 22-2 record en route to the CW title over Trinity Western, will also look to repeat in the men’s tournament, which begins Friday in Hamilton, Ont.

The No. 3 Spartans will look to return to an impressive seventh consecutive U Sports final in a field that includes OUA champion McMaster and RSEQ champion Sherbrooke Vert & Or.

Guelph widens gap at Athletics Championships

If one name could encapsulate the Guelph Gryphons’ dominant run in track and field, it would be Mark Bujnowski.

The Mount Brydges, Ont., native’s era of undisputed dominance in his field has been matched by the Gryphons winning six straight national titles in the men’s competition and five in a row in the women’s competition.

In a fitting cap to his collegiate career, Bujnowski broke the U Sports men’s shot put record with a throw of 19.08m, surpassing 12-year-old Andrew Smith of Saskatchewan by 60cm.

The 2.68m gap over his nearest competition in the event reflected Guelph’s three-day performance that saw the Gryphons win 14 gold, eight silver and six bronze medals.

The Gryphons topped the women’s standings with 166 points — 100 ahead of silver medalist Western and 101 ahead of third-place Saskatchewan — while the men’s 123 points were well ahead of second-place Toronto with 55.5 and bronze Manitoba 55 medal.

Quarterback Craig Thorne broke another U Sports record for Guelph in the men’s 60m hurdles with a time of 7.77 seconds, 0.02 seconds faster than Sekou Kaba’s mark he set for Ottawa in 2014.

Guelph’s depth was also on display on the track, with fifth-seeded Sadie-Jane Hickson defending her title in the women’s 1,000m with a time of 2:44.49, and adding two more first-place finishes in the women’s 4x400m and 4x800m relays.

Third Cameron Ormond, who missed this season’s U Sports Cross Country Championships due to illness, finished just 0.93 seconds behind her Guelph counterpart in the 1,000m to take silver.

Ormond joined Hickson on top of the podium in the 4x800m and got her own shining moment in the 1,500m with a time of 4:24.47 for the gold medal.

“I’m really thankful to be back and healthy,” Ormond told CBC Sports heading into the contest. “This is about redeeming myself in my own eyes, showing that I pushed [through adversity].”

Jacqueline Madgogo (women’s 60m), Zoe Serrar (women’s 300m), Daniel Harper (men’s 300m), Max Davis (men’s 1500m) and Brennan Seguin (men’s pole vault) won also individual gold medals for Guelph, while Jennifer Elton and Mia Rodney completed a sweep of the Gryphons on the podium in the women’s pole vault.

One of the most shocking moments of the weekend came in the men’s triple jump, where Olympic gold medalist Kenneth West of Western (16.24m) dueled with runner-up Femi Akinduro of Toronto (15.98m) in an event that set both clear 10-year-old U Sports record 15.81m.